
Qass. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE WflGONflUTS ABROAD. 



TWO TOURS IN THE WILD MOUNTAINS OF TENNESSEE AND NORTH CAROLINA, 
MADE BY THREE KEGS, FOUR WAGONAUTS, AND A CANTEEN. 



IN TWO PARTS. 



BY A. T. RAMP. 

EDITED BY H, M. DOAK, FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE WAGONAUTS 

^ > ^ • 

" Full of brownies and bogles is this bnke." 



Nashville, Tenn.: 

Southwestern PuBLisHiNr; House. 

1892. 



Entei'ed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1892, 
By H. M. DOAK, 
In the Oflice of the Librarian of Congress, at AVashington. 



% . 






PREiSS (iF 

BARRRE k, SMITH, AGENTS. 

PCBLISHTNG imusK OF THE W. R. CHCKCH, nOUTH- 

N'ASHVtl.I.R, TENN. 



/ 




DEDICATION. 



Eespectfully and Fervently Dedicated to Every 

tra veller / ^ 

Who's a " Hell-ov-a-Tollar " Wherewith to Buy It. 

By the Author, A. T. Eamp. 



Some books are liesfrae end to end, 
And seme great lies were never penned; 
E'en ministers, tJiey hae been kemied, 

In holy rapture, 
A rousin' whid, at times, to vend, 

An' naiVt wi' Scripture: 
But this that I'm a gaun to tell 's 
As true as that the deil 's in hell, 

Or Nashville city ; 
That e 'er he nearer comes oursel ' 

'Sae muckle pity, 

(3) 



INTRODUCTION. 



" Truth is mighty and will prevail." 

This is a veritable chronicle of two genuine tours 
in the picturesque regions of mountainous North 
Carolina. The incidents, scenes, and descriptions 
are faithful and true, except where — for the benefit 
of the believe-alls and the doubt-alls — a note points 
out invention or exaggeration. The incidents are all 
veritable, although sometimes touched up and colored. 
The dramatis personce is appended. 

H. M. DoAK. 
(5) 



CO:NrTE]^TS. 



A thing of shreds and patches. (" Mikado.") ^^^^ 

Minutes or the First Meeting of the Wago- 
NAUTS— The Aliases Chosen 17 

Minutes of the Last Meeting of the Wago- 
NAUTS — Veracious Chronicle "3 

Part I. 
Dramatis Persons 29 

CHAPTER I. 
The Start— An Ancient Town—" Nola Chnckee 
Jack "— Bumpass Cove Furnace— The First 
Abolition Editor— The Devil's Looking-glass— 
Panier's First Poem — Luncheon — Ophidian 
Burnt Offerings— Grand Scenery —Titanic Bat- 
tlefields—At the foot of Great Bald— Brutus' 
Thrilling Going to Bed— Asleep beneath Great 
Bald 31 

CHAPTER IL 
Brutus' Dreadful Awakening— Ascent of Great 
Bald— Botany— Grand Dome— The Hermit of 
Great Bald— His Ditch— Luncheon above the 

Clouds 46 

0) 



8 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER III. 

Page 

Snakes — Fisli — A Mountaineer — A Mountain Ox 
Eig — Huckleberries on Big-Butt — A Noble 
Trout Stream— Hell-Hollo w Fork— Fly Fishing 
— Accidents — Broken Bottle — Brutus' Crime 
and Trial — Cooking Trout — Finding Beauty 
Bothersome — Panier's Adventure with Snakes 
— Bardolph — Erwin, Supper and Best 69 

CHAPTER IV. 
Unaka — Beminiscence of Ye Ancient Times — 
Platonic Admiration — Iron Mountain — The 
Killing Brutus — Meeting a Drummer — Com- 
merce — Big Bock Creek — A Mountain Mill — 
Porte Crayon — Night — A Mountain Maiden — 
Emma Jean — We Leave Emma Jean Milking 
the Kine 84 

CHAPTER V. 

Ascent of the Eoan — Fine Views — Arethusa — A 
Steep Road — A Mountain Grass Farm — Din- 
ing in the Clouds — Siesta in the Empyrean — 
At the Summit — Parting with Our Driver — Bec- 
ollections of the Boan — Unchangeable as 
Ocean — The Brocken Spectre of the Boan — 
Nature above the Clouds — Science — Botany — 
Natural History — A Historical Beference 96 

CHAPTER VL 
The Home of the Clouds— Cloud and Light Ef- 



co:n^ten^ts. 9 

Page 

fects — Sunrise Eock — Valley and Mountain 
Views — Big Black — Valley of East Tennessee 
— Blue Eidge — Cumberland Mountains — Lion 
Bluff — A Granite Sphinx of Nature's Carving 
— Euskin and George Eliot — Fooling Brutus 
into a Walk — Departure from Eoan — A Tramp 
of Twelve Miles — Up-anchor for Home — Lost 
— Luncheon with Beauty — Three Toddies — An 
Olympian Banquet — Culture and Elegance 
Dwelling in the Seclusion of the Eoan's Base 
— Brutus' Wife — He Eesents Eeference to that 
Lady of the Imagination — "Six Miles and the 
Demijohn Dry"^ — Caught Bathing by Mountain 
Nymphs — Escape — Panier's Ducking — Um- 
brella on the Wrong Side — Eoan Station — Sus- 
pected of Jumping the Hotel — End of the first 
Wagonautic Expedition 107 

Part IT. 
Dramatis Peeson^ 133 

CHAPTER I. 
Knoxville — Eecollections of Eevolution — Gay 
Street in 1861-65— Provision against Copper- 
heads — Our Party — Our Turn-out and Stores 
—Lorenzo and Jim — Summer Diversions — 
Going by "Nola Chuckee Jack's" Eoad— Night 
with Wagnerian Symphonies — Whippoorwill 
and Bullfrog — I sing a " Caviare " from Trova- 



10 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 

Page 
tore — Jim Lies Down — Musical Resurrection — 

Like Orpheus, I'm Followed by Jim — Fording 

Big Pigeon in the Dark — Methodist Conference 

— Pie for Supper — Chicken for Breakfast — Off 

for Mt. Sterling— Up North Fork— Botany ... 135 

CHAPTER 11. 

Corn Scarce— A Surly Native — Cosby Creek — 
Retail Liquor Dealing for Corn — Barred by 
the Statute of Limitations — ■ Camped in a 
Spruce Pine Grove— An Old Church — A Fec- 
und Region— Nature's Music— A Wild Camp 
Scene — A Laced Cup — Spoiling Good Coffee 
and Liquor — A Supper for the Gods — Jove's 
Envy— He Thunders at Mortal Bliss— The Can- 
teen — I'm Drenched — Astronomical Views- 
Job's Coffin over the Side of a Canteen — 
"Bethankit" Hummed by Panier — Night 
Views — Memories of Camp Life — An Alham- 
bra View — Boabdil — A Mountain Character — 
Thespian Exercises by Camp Fire — An Aston- 
ished Native — Beds of Asphodel, Fern, and 
Spruce Boughs — Dreams — Night Noises — 
Taking the Road — Revolt — Mutiny — Six 
Bells — Rue for Grog — Rebellion Crushed — 
Blanc's Narrow Escape from Poisoning — My 
Botany — " I Jist Dunno " — A Wild Region— >^ 
Resisting Toll — State Line — Blanc wants to 
Speak — Suppressed — Ups and Downs 144 



CONTENTS. 11 

Page 
CHAPTER III. 

The Governor of North Carolina — Geology — 
Dr. SafPord — Value of Science — The Practical 
class — Vicious Puns — Dr. Blanc's Great Work 
for " Improved Punning" — Big Creek — Corn — 
An Arkansas Traveller — A Native Matron — 
A Coquettish Widow — "Kistocrats" — Snake 
Bites, Past and Future — A Pretty Maiden — 
The " Missionary "—A Little Girl's First View 
of a Eeal African — Poetry under Difficulties 
— Finding a Ehyme — I Drop into Poetry — An 
Ode to Big Creek — I'm the Poet of Big Creek 
— Ascending Mt. Sterling — Pulling Jim Up 
— Cloud Views — Silence of the Summit — Thun- 
derstorms — The Peoples of the Tennessee and 
Carolina Slopes — Dialect — Chaucerian En- 
glish, but No Dialect 160 

CHAPTER IV. 

A Good Man — Gathers Apples for His Mother- 
in-Law — Lovely Streams — Pastures Green — 
Lizard Spring — Luncheon — Cataloochie — 
Trout Fishing — Blanc Goes Gunning and Kills 
a Copperhead — Swollen Streams — End of 
Fishing — We Move On — A Suspicious Native 
— The Keg Clears His Intellect — A Patriot — 
" Ef I Lived in Groun'hog Hole, I'd Fight fur 
It"— A Tar Heel, Who' Been at the "Crater" 



12 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 

■ Page 

— First View of Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa — Grand 

Mountain Views — Yankee Canteen — War Be 
miniscences — A Bumper — " I Hain't Got Noth- 
ing to Take Back Nuther " — A Confederate Ke- 
union in the Mountains — Blanc Wants to 
Speak — Blanc, Unsportsmanlike, Buys Trout 
— Up Socoah — A Deacon — Trying to Invade a 
Church — Invoking the Christian Spirit with a 
Canteen — A Serpent — Blanc Ahead on Snakes 
— His Facility in Seeing Snakes — A Lovely 
Valley — The People— Log Cabins — Jabber- 
wocks — Supper — Sleeping in a Church — Fleas 
Engaged in Calisthenics Down Panier's Bony 
Back 183 

CHAPTER V. 
Climbing to Socoah Gap — In Qualla — A Won- 
derful Valley — Woanded at Sunday Eoad- 
working — Hauling Jim up Socoah — Jim Horn- 
blower — Buying Corn with the Aid of the Can- 
teen — Testing Drowning Bear's Keform — Ke 
form Has Not Touched Jim Hornblower — Six 
Bells — Promise of Corn — Mountain Poets — 
Wordsworth — Byron — How to View These 
Wilds — Alone — The Lonely, Solemn Kaven — 
Engagement to Meet Jim Hornblower at Home 
— Lo's Portion — The Glorious Socoah Falls — 
Indian Traditions — Jim Hornblower Not at 
Home to Paleface — Indian Suspicion, Silence 



CONTENTS. 13 

Page 

and Solitude — A Signal Goes Down the Valley 
— Warned That We're Coming— Indian Agri- 
culture — A Bashi-Bazouk — No Corn — Indians 
Drink Our Whiskey, but No Corn — Resolution 
upon Lo — Digging up the Hatchet — Risking 
Blanc — Disguising our Blond Brave — Young- 
Man- Afraid- His-Horse- Will-Die — Savage Bat- 
tle — Picketus Af ricanus Scouting — Blanc's 
Polyglot Oath — Blanc Saved — Victory — Scalps 
— Laden Wampum Belts — The Schnicker- 
Schnee on duty — No Sunday Trout Fishing — 
Eating the Trout We Didn't Catch — Donning 
a Fiery Bed Cravat, as a Lure for Indian 
Maidens — Indian Divine Worship — Corn at 
Last — Qualla Capital — Crossing Ocona-Luftee 
— View of an Indian School — A Strange Re- 
gion 198 

CHAPTER VI. 

Qualla — Scorning the Useful — Deportation of 
Georgia Cherokees — Policy of North Carolina 
Grants to Her Indians — Part Stay — Drowning 
Bear's Reform — Its Lasting Effect — The Cher- 
okees as Confederate Soldiers — Effect of the 
War — Cherokees Are Citizens — United States 
Guardianship — The School of the Friends — 
Indian Government— Scarcity of Corn — Call- 
ing on the Chief — A Very Intelligent Man — 
A Confederate Colonel — -The Walking Stick 



14 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 

Page 

Brothers — 0-To-na-U-la-na-us-tee — Old In- 
dian Comrades— Jake Doyle and "Staff" — 
Jake's Mess — Loss of Tradition, Legend, and 
Folk Lore — Flattering Lo — Cherokee Lan- 
guage — Indian Names — Poverty of Their 
Speech — Panier's Dreadful Dilemma — Impris- 
oned with a Mountain Maiden — Narrow Escape 
of Panier and the Keg — The Bunghole — Leav- 
ing Qualla — Off for the Tuckeeseegee — What 
We've Seen — Lo at Work — Monday Morning 
— Bryson City — New Town — Stirring People 
— Industries — Mineral Weath — Timbe r — Ho- 
tels — Granites — Nantehala — Down the Little 
Tennessee 222 

CHAPTER YIL 
No Corn — A Starving Country — Bushnell — ^Jim 
— A Hospitable Bustic Family — Technically a 
Deserter — A Man Who Was at Petersburg — 
War Scenes — "I Come Home" — Sleeping in 
Bed and Wishing I Hadn't — Willow Fountain 
—A Tree That Meanly Yielded Water— Down 
Tuckeeseegee^- North Carolina Boads — The 
Advanced Season Here — My Botany Still Ques- 
tioned — Logging on the Little Tennessee — 
Loch Katrine — A Lovely Sunlit View — Trying 
to Describe a Scene for a Painter's Brush — A 
Titan Battle Ground — Dissolving Views — A 
God-forsaken Spot — A Hell's Half Acre — 



co:n^tents. 15 

Page 
Silence — Gathering Fear — A Nocturnal 

Game of "Hearts" — Interrupted by a Ghost 

— The Governor of North Carolina — Panier 

Speaks to Him — Panier and Blanc Keally 

Accuse Me of Nightmare 243 

CHAPTER VIIL 
Leaving the Haunted House — Mile Posts — Indian 
Sign Boards— Eocky Point — Clearing Out Saw 
Logs — Meeting a Koad-working Party — A Lazy 
Lout, Shooting at a Mark, Scares Panier Half 
to Death— A Lonely Cabin— A Native Wom- 
an and Trifling Husband — Beautiful Falls 
—Ascending Great Smoky — Bathing — Lunch- 
eon with Yenison and Champagne in the Gap 
— Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa — Another Mutiny over 
Six Bells — Champagne to Quell Mutiny — Ee- 
newing Allegiance to Six Bells — Taking the 
Oath — Dining in the Gap — Ambrosia and 
Nectar — Venison, Champagne, and Perfecto 
Cigars — A Toll Gate and a Eow — De(s)cent 
Entry into Tennessee — Dialect — A Eemote Ee- 
mon— The Chief Writer of Dialect Stories 
— Cacograhphy Not Dialect— Night Jour- 
neyings Down Great Smoky — Wild Eockets 
—We Land in a Corn Field — Eesolved Not 
to be Found in the Morning in a Cornfield with 
Two Empty Kegs — A Eoadside Dance — A 
Poisonous Julep — Bounding Chilhowie — Sup- 



16 THE WAGOIS^AUTS ABROAD. 

Page 
per and a Nap in a Fence Corner — Maryville 

— Panier's and Blanc's Obtnseness to Music — 
A Forgotten Epic — The Author of "Home, 
Sweet Home" — Farewell to Saltus Africanus 
and Jim — Dissolving View of Jim on a Hill- 
side — Knoxville — Off for Home — The End of 
the AVagonautic Journey in gs by Field and 
Wild 268 



MINUTES OF THE FIKST MEETING 
OF THE WAGOJSTAUTS. 



Ae night at e'en, a merry corps, 

0' ranclie gangrel bodies, 
In wag'naut quarters held the splore, 
They were four jolly laddies. 
Quafling an' laughing 
They ranted an' they sang; 
Wi' jumping an' wi' thumping. 
The very rafters rang. (Burns.) 

At an adjourned meeting of the Wagonauts, held 

pursuant to adjournment — "Hold on," objected 

White. " This being the first meeting, can't be met 

pursuant to adjournment "—present the President, 

H. M. Doak, Secretary E. L. Hoke, and G. H. Bas- 

kette and K. L. C. White, private Wagonauts— it 

was moved by AYliite and seconded by Hoke that the 

Wagonauts spend two weeks this summer about the 

Great Bald and the Koan, and the trout streams 

thereabout, in the mountains of Northwestern North 

Carolina; and two weeks of next summer on the trout 

streams about the Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa, to-wit: the 

Cataloochie, the Ocona-Luftee, the Tuckee-see-gee, 

the Socoah, and the Nante-ha-la, in and near the 

Cherokee Reservation of Qualla, in Southwestern 

North Carolina. 

2 (17) 




18 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



At this point the proceedings were foully inter- 
rupted by the entrance of a black Hebe, with four 
schooners of beer and four portions of limberger 
cheese, which, not to speak it profanely, smelled like 
sheol, with an ancient, a noisome and sulphurous 
funk. The cheese was labeled " Teufelsdrockh's Best, 
Eldest, and Fragrantest." 

It was determined, nem. con., that the Wagonauts 
should wear aliases; White, alone, the chronic ob- 
jector, interposing, "The apparel's rather thin even 
for July." In deference to White's delicacy — which 
is well grounded — to mention of aliases, it was agreed 
that members might wear such other apparel as they 
might deem fit, belly-bands alone being barred. 

The Wagonauts then went into an election of aliases. 
Brutus nominated White to be R. Elsie Albus. " I 
object," shouted White. " I want al-buss-in,' I do, 
kept suh rosa, and I don't want to be advertised to 
do all-bussin'. Besides," he further objected, "the 
tying of ' perfide ' onto Albion has degraded the name 
— it's a reflection." These objections w^ere allowed 
due weight, and White proposed that his alias might 
be "Lucus," which, he maintained, was a literal trans- 
lation of White into the latinus vulgiis. Panier ob- 
jected that this would be a Incus a non hicendo — White 
wasn't lucid, and alba never lucus. " Let it be Blanc, 
then," suggested Hoke. " I'm not a blank cartridge," 
cried White, besides 'twould be profanity." "It's 



MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETIN^G. 19 

sweetly suggestive of blanc-mange. Cur-ious you 
hadn't observed that," suggested Baskette. 

"Why not Candidatus to the Wagonautic roamin' 
uns?" suggested White. "Let me 

Be candidatus then and put it on 

And help to " put a head on " a headless Rome (roam)." 

Doak objected that the Wagonauts wouldn't be 
headless roamers, or their expedition a headless roam, 
when he was to be Jason of the party. 

It was agreed that, while perfide Alba was going 
too far. White and candidatus were not by any 
means synonymns. Panier went so far as to say 
that White didn't mean candid, which was ruled out 
as a reflection on Dr. White's Latin and "parts of 
speech." 

The previous question was moved, and the question 
came on upon the motion to adopt Blanc, which was 
carried, so White will go as Dr. B. Elsie Blanc. 

It was then moved that Baskette be clad in an alias 
composed of the French for "Basket," and "Cor- 
beille" was moved. It was objected by Blanc that 
Corbeille is a basket in general, while we need a syn- 
onym for the particular wastebasket we're borrowing 
from the Banner editorial rooms. Brutus suggested 
that Panier is a waist basket. " Yes," said Baskette, 
" but it's worn only by ladies, and then only on the 
other side of the waist." "And," suggested Doak, 



20 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



"Panier's a little basket; and there's no waste of lit- 
tle Baskettes about our friend's premises. Besides 
the lean and hungry Baskette's French enough now 
and waste enough too." 

"If we could find something expressive of a bread 
basket or a champagne basket, it would be the very 
thing to express our friend," said Hoke. 

The previous question was moved, and" Panier" 
unanimously carried as the alias of our waste Bas- 
kette. 

Further proceedings were interrupted by the en- 
trance of tlebe with further schooners, which were 
charged up to Blanc and the Club thus hit harmless- 
ly by a charge. 

The suggestion of Brutus as Mr. Hoke's alias was 
unanimously adopted, after the universal objector, 
Blanc, had assailed it with a poor effort at wit, that 
it was a Brute part to kill so capital a calf as Brutus 
was showing himself to be by his manner of sucking 
his schooner of beer, and then to make nothing bet- 
ter of him than Brutus. He thought it would im- 
Brut-us as a club. This stale calf joke of Lord Ba- 
con was hamstrung on a peg, as one that couldn't be 
porked off on living Wagonauts. 

It was then decided that the President and Jason 
of the expedition should go as A. T. Bamp. Panier, 
who by this time had grown maudlin, said that the 
title was a perfect fit, that our President was a natu- 



mi:n^utes of the first meeting. 21 



ral tramp, a capital T-E-Iv-Eamp; he'd a ram(p)art 
in tliese things — he's a ram-part of strength. Brutus 
added: "A. T. Ramp would be the ram-part of any- 
thing he'd go-at." A. T. Ramp was then unanimously 
elected the historiograjpher of the expedition and 
bidden to be in all things truthful, and to set down 
naught in malice and, especially, to be gentle and 
forbearing towards the shortcomings and frailties of 
Blanc and Panier. He was directed to lay in all 
supplies and charge to the score of Blanc; but, upon 
no account, to allow Blanc to have the handling of 
fluid stores. 

Suggestion of snakes having been entered upon 
the journal, Dr. B. Elsie Blanc was elected surgeon 
and medical purveyor in ordinary to the Jason of tlie 
expedition, who was, however, given the keys to the 
kegs. Dr. Blanc's long practice and experience in 
snakes was deemed as rather fitting him to deal with 
snakes after they'd been raised than to commend him 
as a person to have the keeping of the means of rais- 
ing snakes. Dr. Blanc's views on the subject of 
snake remedies being well-known to the Wagonauts, 
the President was instructed to follow implicitly any 
directions of his as to the character of antidotes to be 
selected. Bamp was further instructed to be care- 
ful, as historiographer, to avoid exaggeration and in- 
vention and never to admit that there was anything 
he didn't know. 



22 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



After another schooner, charged to Blanc, the Wag- 
onauts cleaned up the savory fragments of Limberger, 
deodorized themselves with nickel cigars of the Mun- 
dungus brand, and adjourned sine die. 

E. L. Brutus, Secretary. 



MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING 
OF THE WAGONAUTS. ^' 



Farewell, forever, fare thee well. (Othello.) 
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not 
escape calumny. (Hamlet.) 

The Wagonauts assembled pursuant to adjourn- 
ment, A. T. Ramp in the chair. The Club met to 
read, consider, and approve the report of the Presi- 
dent upon the First and Second Wagonautic Expe- 
ditions. 

The Secretary cannot proceed without bestowing a 
line upon the scene. The portly, noble and venera- 
ble A. T. Eamp sits at the head of the table, his ro- 
tund, orbed, and moon-sphered face wreathed in 
smiles, and yet his attitude is one of conscious com- 
mand and dignity. He gravely recognizes the re- 
sponsibilities of his station, as he sits, as one on whom 
all the gods had set their seal to give the world as- 
surance of a man. About him are ranged the compan- 
ions of his late toil and glory. He is clad in the 
rapt spoils of the warpath. A gigantic headdress 
of eagles' plumes surmounts that noble brow — a fit 
and aspiring coiffure for that bald dome of thought 

and of rule which his friends have, not ineptly, 

(23) 



'"^.---, 



24 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 

named, "The Great Bald." A necklace of bears* 
claws is clasped about that brawny neck. As a coro- 
net of honor and not for use, by his side is displayed 
a coonskin cap, whose tail dangles coquettishly down 
by the side of the tablecloth and tempts a litter of 
festive kittens to play, with confidence in the beam- 
ing good nature of that great man until tliey actually 
climb upon his shoulder and toy with that adaman- 
tine cheek, which has blanched the stern faces of 
foemen in mortal combat, and yet disdains not the 
playful toyings of gentle puss. 

It was the spirit of a low envy that led Blanc to 
whisper it about that this coonskin was no hard-earn- 
ed trophy, won from its savage possessor in honora- 
ble combat; but the ignoble pelt of a pet coon, slain 
by the accidental discharge of Ramp's fowling piece 
as he climbed a fence in fast and disgraceful retreat, 
in mortal fear of the harmless pet of Indian pa- 
pooses. 

Even the fair-seeming Panier has been heard to 
whisper that the bears' claws are the claws of a sa- 
cred stuffed bear, kept in the wigwam of the great 
Medicine Man of the Quail a-Quoi-Alina-Catoosa, sa- 
cred to the mighty spirit of Gitche-Manitou, shot by 
Ramp, by pure accident, as he turned to flee from 
the dummy bear in mortal fear. 

Let them hurl their shafts, barbed with envy and 
tinctured in the woora-woora of biting jealousy, upon 



MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING. 25 



vulnerable crests. The darts of envy fall harmless 
ux^on the head of our mighty hero, Ramrod and trav- 
eller, who hath encompassed so many lands. 

From the wampum belt of the President dangle 
two glory scalps, torn from the ensanguined skulls 
of twin hostile braves, during the great battle of So- 
coah, where Ramp rescued Blanc and Panier from 
certain death, and enabled them to see the light of 
another day, and the opportunity to assail his fame 
with envy. Envy has not spared even these gory 
trophies of a hard-fought battle. Panier hath spread 
it abroad in low whispers that he detected Ramp, 
wandering, reeling along Gay Street, in Knoxville, the 
redoubtable hero filling himself up from the can- 
teen with limberger courage, and finally assailing 
and scalping two Indian tobacco signs. Panier 
swears that he saw A. T. Ramp creep stealthily up 
to and tear the scalps from these peaceful Indians, 
wantonly hurl them in the gutter, and bespoil them 
of tomahawk and bended bow and quiver. Blanc 
has even been mean enough and blind enough to as- 
sail the archaeology of Ramp, and to swear that one 
of the scalps is that of a friendly Scotch Highlander, 
ye lad in kilt, who was doing duty as a tobacco sign, 
and no Indian at all. Envy could go no further; tra- 
duction hath here wrought its worst. 

The noble Ramp is secretly aware of these asper- 
sions of envy; but, with the divine magnanimity of 



26 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



the man, lie accepts a sycophantic lip-service and 
forgives. 

As our noble President aiid late Jason rapped the 
house to order, four schooners of sparkling beer 
trembled invitingly upon the table^ and the genial 
incense of four portions of limberger gratefully as- 
cended upon the midnight air. The following pro- 
ceedings were then had, to-wit: 

1. Resolved, That the Wagonauts congratulate themselves and 
the public upon the happy ending of their two vast explorations, 
and especially their great leader upon his truthful report of the 
adventures of the Wagonauts in their quest for the golden fleece 
of unsuspecting Carolina lambs, and, themt-elves, that they have 
gone for wool and returned unshorn — brought back alive by 
tlieir gallant leader — safe and sound, after all their perils. They 
congratulate themselves that they have been graciously per- 
mitted to be sharers in his hardships and in his gloiies. 

2. That the Wagonauts gratefully adopt the veracious record 
of their wanderings as a verisimilitudinous history of their ex- 
ploits; and, while they are not unmindful that their historiog- 
rapher has taken all the best things said unto himself, and laid 
all the worst puns upon his comrades, made himself the center 
and hero of all the great deeds, and laid all the disgraceful doings 
upon his late comrades; yet, this is the course of history, and 
wliat we want is Simon Pure history. 

3. That this faithful chronicle be printed at the expense of the 
public, or charged to Blanc. 

After these flattering resolutions were adopted, 
our noble President arose, with tears and beer stream- 
ing down his manly nose, and dripping from his 



MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING. 27 

kindly chin and bedewing his ample cheek and 
said, choking with sobs: "Comrades, Wagonauts, 
sharers of my toils, my trials, my hardships, and my 
glory, I owe to all of yon — except what you owe to 
me— as favor, protection, safety, honor, aye life itself 
— ' owes me for four rounds of schooners and limber- 
ger,' whispered the envious Blanc — ' and me for six,' 
whispered Panier— 'which will never be paid,' chimed 
both in unison, with Thersitian speech— "a debt 
which I can never repay," continued Ramp. "And 
yet I feel that I have only done my duty," and he sat 
down sobbing as if his great heart would break, full 
of emotion and beer, and redolent of fragrant lim- 
berger, amid rounds of roof -shattering applause ; and 
the last meeting of the Wagonauts adjourned sine die. 

R. L. Brutus, Secretary. 



PART FIRST. 

THE BALD AND THE ROAN. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

E. L. Hoke, A Critical Writer Brutus. 

G.B..BASKETTB,W\iiov JSrasJimlle Banner - G id H. Punier. 

H. M. DoAK, Clerk U. S. Circuit Court - A. T. Ramp. 

(29) 






i 

\ _ 


■^ 


^ 




1 


i^^^V 




p^s:^ 




i 


^ 


BESi^^ 



L 




R. L. C. BLANC. 
(30) G. H. PANIEP. 



BRUTUS. 
A.T. RAMP. 



THE WR60MUTS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER I. 



The wagon cheered, Jonesboro cleared, 

Merrily did we drop, 
Below the hill, below the kirk, 

Below the courthouse top. (Coleridge.) 

THE three Avagonauts — 11. L. Brutus, Gid- 
eon II. Pauicr, and A. T. Ramp, the his- 
toriographer of the wagonautic search for 
golden fan and the self-constituted Jason, 
quartermaster and commissary of the wago- 
nautic expedition — reached the liistoric town 
of Jonesboro at 6 o'clock Monday morning. 
Panier and Brutus were given leave to 
gaze upon the architectural treasures of this, 
the oldest town in Tennessee, where Andrew 
Jackson held court and John Sevier— ^^ Kola 
Chiicky Jack" — entertained gaping crowds 
of admirers at street corners, while he rested 

from the hardships of the wild warpath. Ja- 

(31) 



32 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



son stirred up a livery stable and a hotel, and 
by 8 o'clock the AVagonauts were on their 
way to the blue mountains, whose azure sum- 
mits pierced the skies eight miles distant. 
Our equipment consisted of Ben, the driver, 
Uyo strong roadsters, a stout two-seated wag- 
on, fishing rods and lines, a book of trout 
flies, a box of provisions for a cruise of ten 
days, consisting of potted meats, boiled ham, 
beaten biscuits, cheese, collee, sugar, pepper, 
salt, a coffee pot, tin cups, knives and forks, 
and a five-gallon demijohn of old rye as a 
preventive of snake bites, a corkscrew for 
drawing obstinate fish, a qnart bottle wherein 
to store provision of snake medicine npon 
brief fishing jaunts away from the demijohn 
base of operations. As to the value of liiis 
kind of snake preventive, it is enough to 
say that, in a jaunt of two hundred miles in 
the worst serpent regions of I^orth Carolina, 
our party failed to encounter a single snake 
more venomous than a water moccasin. 

Passinsr southeast alonsf the low Buffalo 
Ridge, through the old Cherokee county into 
the beautiful valley of the IN^ola Chuckee, we 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 33 



entered Bumpass Cove by an old metal road, 
which wound steeply along the clear, dashing 
Nola Chuckee, over high precipices, over- 
looking deep pools and roaring rapids. At 
a povit opposite Embreeville we paused to 
gaze from a rugged backbone of a projecting 
rock upon the remains of the old village and 
of Blair's furnace, one of the oldest in the 
State, generally known as Bumpass Cove 
furnace. Below us lay broad, calm reaches 
of clear water, alternating with long, steep- 
down rapids, where the waters foamed and 
bubbled and roared and gleamed in the west- 
ering sunlight as they dashed down over great 
quartz and granite rocks, rough and rugged, 
or round and polished by ages of rolling and 
grFKling of sand and pebbles. Below us, in 
the far, the bright river stretches out of sight 
behind a blue mountain. Beyond the river 
a broad valley-plain stretches to the outliers 
of Rich Mountain. On the river bank lay the 
old town of Embreeville, named for Elihu 
Embree, the founder of the first abolition 
newspaper in America, printed at Jonesboro, 
whose son, by the way, served in the Confed- 



ol THE WAG0:NAUTS AI3KOAD. 



erate army. At our feet the beautiful river, 
compressed to a few feet, ruslied swiftly but 
calmly down a gorge cut through an im- 
mense sandstone rock, on the headland end 
of which we stood and surveyed the other 
end Avhere it cropped sheer up out of the 
ground beyond the river, a huge backbone 
of forty feet in height. The river had once 
formed here a lake and a fall, until it cut its 
way through and around the end of the rock 
and went roaring and seething and hissing, 
flouting the angry, frowning rock and leaving 
it scowling, while the glad waters danced 
on their way to the ocean. So it has gone 
roaring and bubbling for many a day, and still 

It bubbles and seethes and it hisses and roars, 
As when fire is with water commixed and com- 
mingled; 

And the noise of its roaring to the welkin upsoars, 
And the flood hurries on never ending. 

Behind us lay the valley of East Tennessee 
and the lovely vale of the Nola Chuckee, and 
around and before us blue mountains, from 
the thin-soiled low pine hills to the fertile 
beech, birch, and oak covered mountains. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 35 



Only eight miles from the railway and civ- 
ilization we were entering a conntry of almost 
primeval wildness. 

Winding along the Chnckee throngh a 
dense shade of hemlocks, laurels (rhododen- 
dron), ivy (kalmia) and dark pines, we came 
to the sparkling spring opposite the Devil's 
Looking-glass. The cool, clear water, per- 
petually buhhling like champagne with es- 
caping gases, invited us to rest, and here we 
poured our first libation as a propitiatory offer- 
inof to all surrounding- snakes. The Devil's 
Looking-glass faced us across the river, a 
huge, perpendicular, frowning cliff, rising 
sheer eight hundred feet. Brutus admired 
himself in this truthful mirror and Ramp 
posed and smirked and gazed at himself. It 
failed to reflect the Apollo form of the wago- 
nautic Jason. 

Ramp here kindly recited for us his first 
poem, beginning 

A man stood on a frowiiiug cliff; 

A dog stood by his side; 
The man leaped off the frowning cliff; 

The dog could had he tried. 



36 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



A sweet, simple, touching poem, original 
in conception and excellent in execution, 
which has never been in print before. The 
change from the indefinite to the definite ar- 
ticle is particularly fine. I recalled shooting 
a fine fish at this point thirty-one years ago, 
with a Sharp's rifle, while lunching at this 
spring. I tried to repeat the unsportsman- 
like feat with a Smith & Wesson, and only 
failed because no fish appeared. 

Leaving the 'Nola Chuckee here, we crossed 
over into the Limestone Cove, so called be- 
cause of the occurrence of limestone, which 
is exceedingly rare in these mountains. A 
broad, fertile valley lay before us, enclosing 
in its centre the town of Erwin, county seat 
of Unicoi, which was first named Yanderbilt; 
but the old Commodore failing to respond, the 
name was changed to Erwin. Thence our 
course lay up the 'Nola Chuckee again to the 
Eed Banks, where a primitive bridge has 
taken the place of the dangerous but pictur- 
esque ford of old times. While consulting 
a native about the crossing I spoke harshly 
of the bridge as an encroachment of civili- 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABllOAD. 37 



zation upon aboriginal wildness. The old 
fellow chuckled and said: "Stranger, you 
hain't agwyne to find that ar bridge as much 
civilization as you mout think. They hain't 
no civilization about hit 'cept the quarter you 
pays to git across." 

Two miles above the bridge we left the 
river and began a steeper ascent, toiling up 
excellent mountain roads that wound up 
chestnut ridges, disclosing at every turn new 
beauties in the fertile valleys below and in 
peak upon peak, rising higher and bluer 
ahead. Sometimes our road, always ascend- 
ing, stooped into deep valleys and skirted 
narrow gorges, lined with laurels and ivies, 
cucumber magnolias, dark green hollies, tall 
hemlocks, green undergrowthsj and tangled 
vines. Through frequent openings in the 
green coverts of the gorges the waters of 
deep, clear pools lay dark and sullen in the 
shadows. Lovely cascades, roaring falls, and 
foaming rapids now showed a pale ghostly 
white and now gleamed bright and shimmer- 
ing, where chance sunbeams pierced the 
gloom and fell in a golden shower down be- 



38 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



tween ragged, rocky walls of deep gorges. 
It was a gorgeous country. 

In such countiy rustic wit has it that day- 
light is brought down from the hilltops in 
troughs. Here and there we passed cabins 
perched upon rocky hillsides, where a few 
cleared acres showed patches of corn and of 
the fine tobacco now raised in this country, 
for the curing of which the natives have 
learned to build better barns than grace the 
tobacco regions of Middle Tennessee and 
Kentucky- — better by far than the cabins they 
dwell in. Such hillside ftirnis have sug- 
gested to the mountain wits that the '' fiirms 
looks rolled up like, as if the settlers was 
agwyne to move." 

Here at a turn in the road, high up on a 
steep mountain, opens before us a scene of 
rare loveliness. A cold, pure spring gushes 
out of the mountain side and runs across the 
road. A lofty peak, beautiful as 'Svoody " 
Ida, towers above us to the right, green with 
broad-branched,waving chestnuts, whose tops 
and branch-tips are Avhite with graceful blos- 
soms. Below us and before us lies a broad 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 39 



valley dotted with white frame cottages and 
log cabins. That rare painter, the snn, is 
displaying his brilliant effects of light and 
shade upon green hills, upon the forests of 
purple peaks right at hand, upon the far, 
faint blue of distant mountains, upon over- 
hanging bright clouds, upon waving corn, 
dark in the shadows of high mountains, or 
bright green in the full sunlight, and flash- 
ing back the emerald light like an army with 
waving banners, unsheathed swords and fixed 
bayonets; upon clear, winding brooks and 
broad mountain streams, dashing darkly in 
midday shadows over cool stones and around 
great wdiitc boulders or dark granite masses. 

Yonder the noon sunlight gleams like gold, 
or shines afar a silvery white, as its beams 
fall at varying angles upon brook and stream, 
white stones and dark rock masses, or yon- 
der on broad meadows of pale green timothy, 
fields of red clover, or waving acres of dark 
redtop, alternating with dark green maize 
and the yellow stubbles of reapen wheat 
fields. 

On both sides of the broad vale lie steep 



40 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 



walls of densely wooded hills, with, here and 
there, bold, frowning- cliffs, peering savagely 
out, or bare gray stones glaring in the sun- 
light. In the fixr distance tall peaks dare to 
lift their blue into the azure of the sky out 
of purple bases; and every peak is head- 
dressed with fantastic wreaths of fleecy 
clouds, that now float high and wdiite, now 
blush and grow roseate, as if those grim 
peaks had whispered something naughty, 
now thicken, frown, grow dark and sweep 
across our point of view, veiling mountain 
and valley and dashing the faces of the hills 
with light, quick, grateful showers; then 
passing away, leaving blue peaks serene in 
clear air and forest and meadow, cornfield 
and stubble, smiling and reflecting a myriad 
hues, and gleaming with a million pearl and 
diamond raindrops. 

There are many ways of ascent to the 
Great Bald, of which we chose that by way 
of the Flag Pond, so called, Incus a non lit- 
cendo, because there are neither flags nor 
ponds within fifty miles of it. 

Pushing lazily on, half the time walking 



THE avago:n^auts abkoad. 41 



in that delightful atmosphere, up our wind- 
ing way, all the time ascending, although 
not without occasional descents into valley 
or gorge, we stopped at all the cabins and 
houses, interviewed all the men, women, and 
children we met, and found them, as I re- 
membered them in my youth, obliging and 
communicative, but as incurious as savages. 
Along with abundant signs of progress and 
great personal improvement in manner, 
dress, and mode of living, these singular peo- 
ple still retain their mixture of native shrewd- 
ness, rare hospitality, and obliging disposi- 
tions. 

One who goes through this country, misled 
by romances, to listen for dialect, w^ill be 
disappointed. Brutus declared that they 
spoke better English than he was in the habit 
of using. Antique words, forms, and ex- 
pressions, and the grammar and pronuncia- 
tion of the illiterate may be found, but no 
dialect, scarcely even patois. ^^ Spun-truck," 
for yarn or thread; " garden- truck," ^^truck- 
patch," garden " sass," " sparrowgrass," 
^^ settlement," with accent on the final sylla- 



42 THE WAGOl^AUTS ABROAD. 



ble, ^^gwyne," forgoing, ^^ fetch" for bring, 
" battlin'-stick " for the paddle with which the 
clothes are beaten in washing, one may hear. 
It would take the peculiarities of about five 
hundred people compressed into one charac- 
ter, to make one speaking such absurdities 
as the romancers manufacture. Indeed the 
speech of the native dilFers but little, scarce- 
ly at all, from the speech of the same classes 
in the lowlands of Middle and West Ten- 
nessee, and for the very good reason that 
these are continually recruited from the 
ranks of the mountaineers. Such was my 
recollection, based upon a youth of summers 
spent amongst these people, with whom I've 
played the fiddle, danced on puncheon floors, 
and hunted and fished. This jaunt has con- 
firmed my recollection. 

Late in the afternoon we began the ascent 
of the Bald's great slopes, outlying ridges 
and spurs, up deep, rocky gorges, every one 
threaded by its own roaring, foaming stream. 
Great gray or black masses of primitive 
rock rose up along the road and in the 
woods and occasional fields, looking as if 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 43 

Deucalion and Pyrrha, doubtful of the soil 
here, had sown a double seeding of stones 
after the deluge. 

A little after dark we reached the last house 
on the side of the Great Bald, two mountain 
miles from the summit. After some parleying 
and polite depreciation of fare and bedroom, 
and assurance that we could sleep with the dog 
in the porch or with the horses, or with the 
demijohn and the snakes outdoors, our host 
consented to take us in. After the fatigues 
of the day, with appetites whetted by the 
mountain air, and the odor of rye, poured out 
as a votive offering to snakes, we encompass- 
ed a large quantity of excellent ^mountain 
fare. 

After supper our host told us that he had 
one spare room, which two of us could oc- 
cupy, while the other might do the best he 
could in the family room, occupied by our 
host and hostess, a half dozen tow-headed chil- 
dren, and a comely mountain lassie of about 
seventeen sumners. Panier and I at once 
moved into the spare room. It was Brutus's 
first mountain experience. 



44 THE WAGONUATS ABROAD. 



" There's yer bed, stranger; I reckon you're 
tired — been travellin' and maybe you'd like 
to lie down." 

Brutus assured him that he was very sleepy. 
The fire burned brightly; the ladies sat with 
the bed in full view. Brutus stretched him- 
self, yawned, and said he believed he'd go to 
bed. JN^obody disputed this article of belief. 
Panier and I sat smoking on the porch, 
viewing our victim through the open door. 
Finally Brutus came out, and asked us how 
the devil he was going to get to bed, with 

those women sitting there in full view. 

I am sorry to say it, but truth compels me to 
say that Brutus left a full, large blank space 
before ^Svomen " in his remark to us. Pa- 
nier suggested that he might undress out- 
side and make a rush. 

After paying his best respects to the dem- 
ijohn, he returned, stood about the fire, 
yawned, and said he was tired and sleepy. 
Brutus is a man of desperate courage, but ex- 
ceeding modesty. He kicked off his shoes, 
turned hiuiself about the fire — as if he were 
spitted and bound to furnish an early roast 



THE WAGO:NrAUTS ABROAD. 45 



— until he got down to trousers and shirt in 
the way of denudation — if I may mention de- 
nude in nature. Panier reminded him that 
we had to make an early start in the morning, 
and that " early to bed and early to rise is 
the way to be healthy, w^ealthy, and wise." 

I have never seen such gymnastics. Al- 
though he'd displayed an elaborately adorned 
nightgown, he leaped out of trousers and 
shirt, fell over a rocking-chair, indulged in 
a moment's Grseco-Roman wrestling match 
with the chair, turned a somersault over into 
the center of the vast feather bed, and doub- 
led the cover over him, leaving his fancy 
nightgown spread out on the floor, and the 
rest of his apparel scattered from the fire to 
the bed, while the ladies sat dipping snuff, 
all unconscious that any one could be making 
all that fuss about going to bed. Panier 
and I sat chuckling on the porch, resolved 
that we'd see his itprising on the morrow. 
I reserve that and the ascent of the Great 
Bald for the next chapter. 

N^. B. — True, but slightly exaggerated. 



CHAPTEE II. 



Upon a simmer Tuesday morn, 

When Nature's face is fair, 
We walked forth to view the corn, 

An' snuft* the caller air. 
The risin' sun, o'er Nola moors, 

Wi' glorious light was glintin', 
The hares were hirplin' down the fur's, 

The lavrocks they were chantin' 
Fu' sweet that day. 

IJN^ the last chapter I left Brutus enveloped 
in one half of a feather bed, and modestly 
reposing upon the other half. When, as Cer- 
vantes would say, the rosy fingers of Aurora 
had streaked the eastern horizon with pur- 
ple and gold, Panier and I arose from our 
feathery couch, and donned our apparel. 
The sun w^as over in North Carolina, and 
we lay under the shadow of the Great Bald, 
and beneath the canopy of gracefully curling 
mists, to which every dell and vale was send- 
ing its fieecy contribution. I entered the 
(46) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 47 



chamber where Brutus lay, clothed upon 
with slumber and modesty. Saluting the 
fair damsel, who stood twixt the fire and 
the table, with dimpled arms up to the elbow 
in a great basin of potential corndodger, I 
called: '^Brutus, awake; shake off downy 
sleep, death's counterfeit; up; away." 

Brutus awoke to the light of another morn- 
ing, gazed upon the maiden, and said he 
thought he'd get up. The damsel went on 
kneading the mealy dough, her eyes fixed 
demurely upon the basin — went on kneading 
as serenely as, according to Coleridge, the 
lady, in the " Sorrows of Werther," went on 
" cutting bread and butter." 

" I'm going to get up," said Brutus, sternly. 
After a pause, filled up with gazing at the 
dreadful light, streaming in from two open 
doors, at the firelight, casting the flickering 
shadow of the maiden upon the wall, and at 
the swaying form of the damsel, Brutus said, 
pleadingly: " I want to get up." 

^N'ot another sound was heard; the maiden 
neither blinked nor stirred, except that she 
that dodger stirred; nor sighed nor said a 



48 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



single word; the only thought came in her 
head was there to stand and dnly knead 
that same panful of dodger bread, all mind- 
less of poor Brutus's plight, as he lay there 
bewildered quite, with youthful modesty be- 
dight. 

At last one snowy foot stole from be- 
neath the counterpane, a wild, fierce look of 
stubborn resolve replaced the modest mien; 
and with one bound he landed in the middle 
of the floor, pale but determined. Another 
leap and he was inside trousers and shoes, 
and flying down the rocky path to the brook 
below, and with him fled many a modest 
blush, a towel, and a cake of soap; while the 
maiden went on demurely kneading the 
dodger bread, innocently nnconscious.*^ 

After a delightful plunge into a clear, cold 
mountain pool, we stored away that same 
dodger bread on the inside, where it would 
do the most good, laid a sack of edibles upon 
the broad shoulders of Ben, and made Bru- 
tus chief bottle holder. A little of that old 
rye was deemed necessary — not that there 

* True, but slightly colored. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 49 



are any snakes upon the Bald, for there are 
none; but there are snakes over in [N^orth 
Carolina, and none can know when they may 
start west to grow up with the country and 
meet the traveller unprovided. 

It is a glorious summer morning. The 
mists are sailing high, scattered by morning 
sunbeams. The clouds have lifted from the 
top of the mountain and now hang high in 
the blue heavens. The woods are fragrant 
with sweet scents of birches, ferns, and moist 
smelling earth. Laughing streams, dashing 
down the mmmtain sides, or murmuring 
along their rocky beds in dark, laurel-fringed 
ravines, make the mountain musical. Great 
gray rocks, with round lichen eyes, loom up 
in the misty gloom of thick woods, like gi- 
ants' tombs. Dark granites tower here and 
there in the gray, like frowning sentinels, 
guarding the sacred haunts of Titan kings. 

Our way leads for a mile or more up a 

gentle slope, whose fertile soil has reared 

gi'eat wild cherry trees, giant linns, large 

maples, huge red birches; the graceful forms 

of the white birch, old oaks, walnut and 
4 



50 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



chestnut trees, cucumber magnolias, and hol- 
lies, laurels, ivies, and the beautiful mountain 
dogwood, line the dashing streams, and famil- 
iar alders and elders still hold place. 

Long, white spikes of rattle weed sit upon 
their tall, slender stems and nod to the moun- 
tain breeze. The magnificent foliage and 
showy bloom of the queen of the meadow is 
seen here and there. Spikenard, ginseng, 
angelica, snakeroot, bearsfoot, crowsfoot, 
and a thousand familiar plants and mosses, 
carpet with green the cool, damp, woodlands. 
]N^ow and then a mountain boomer — a small, 
black squirrel — runs across the road or scales 
a tree. Chippy sparrows chirp, and snow- 
birds liit through the green leaves; but ani- 
mal and bird life are rare at this elevation. 

The ascent soon became very steep, and 
the trees gradually diminished in size, the 
air grew cooler, the woodlands moister, and 
now a fine spring invites to rest and liba- 
tions. Up and up, and now we begin to see 
through the sparser timber higher points 
and sharper ridges. Plants and trees are 
thinning out, and new forms are taking the 



THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 51 



places of those that cannot endure the upper 
air. There's always room at the top, some- 
body said; but it's small comfort to those 
who can't reach or can't endure the top. The 
mountain ash, the birch, beech, and moun- 
tain dogwood are still constant. 

The sickly, yellow green of the hellebore 
— gathered for making veratrum viride — be- 
gins to deck the mountain sides with its pe- 
culiar and striking blossoms of green in 
long racemes and irregnlar spikes, sucking 
poison from the damp fogs of the mountain. 
The hellebore now wears a baftied air, and a 
sea-green Robespierre sort of look of despair, 
as if it were bewailing that man has turned 
its poisons into medicine for human ills, 
where it would only kill. 

And now we are in the beeches — grotesque, 
gnarled, stumpy dwarfs, that stand like 
gnomes, kobolds, and wizards, guarding 
with their weird forms places of enchant- 
ment. They look as if they might have 
been once little, queer, dwarf old men and 
women suddenly turned into beeches. With 
the exception of the red haw, the beeches 



52 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



are the last of the deciduous trees, and these 
shrink until, at the timber line, they are but 
miniature caricatures of the lowland broad, 
spreadiug beeches of Virgil, where, '^ tu, o 
Tytyre, dost practise a woodland lay upon 
the slender pipe." Above the timber line 
grow only firs and spruces, and such arctic 
trees; but none of these are found upon the 
Bald. Of animal life, here, where thirty 
years ago, I found wild turkey and pheas- 
ants, feeding upon the abundant grasshop- 
pers, we saw only sparrows and suowbirds. 

The Bald Mountain belongs to a, pres- 
umably, Col. Johuson, of Asheville, 'N. C, 
the Tennessee side, however, being in dispute. 
It is used for grazing purposes. Close graz- 
ing cuts the grass short and banishes the 
flowers, of which I once gathered here forty- 
six varieties. The State line runs across the 
centre of the Bald, marked by a stone, in- 
scribed: "S. L., 188G." 

The old ditch cut by Davy Greer is still 
to be plainly seen, although it has filled up 
almost a foot within thirty years. This curi- 
ous mountain character came to the Great 



THE WAGONAUTS ABIiOAD. 53 



Bald from Virginia early in this centnry. 
Plis appearance indicated Oriental origin and 
Virginia traditions, which followed him to 
tlie west, made him a half-breed Arabian, 
son of a roving nobleman. He took posses- 
sion of the Bald, levied tribnte like a feudal 
lord, grazed cattle, protected those who paid 
tribute, and waged war upon all who refused 
to recognize his right of suzerainty. For one 
of his murders he was arrested, tried, and ac- 
quitted on the plea of insanity. He was again 
arrested, escaped, and threatened the life of 
the sheriff; but the officer of the law was too 
quick for the outlaw. He shot and killed him. 
This singular hermit ditched off several 
hundreds of acres of the bald top of the 
Great Bald and cultivated a portion of it, 
planting rye and potatoes, living in summer 
in a cave just below the timber line, and 
spending his winters in a cabin lower down, 
where he had a mill. I have often talked 
with Ervvin about Davy Greer, whom he 
shot as he came down the mountain. He 
said it was shoot or be shot, and he preferred 
doing the shooting. 



54: THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 

At a delightful spring in the edge of the 
Bald we built a huge fire and spitted and 
broiled chickens, poured out libations of 
snake juice, and spread a meal Virgil wonld 
have delighted to describe, in verse nnpro- 
fiined by invasions of foul harpies. 

This grand old mountain is innocent of 
house or wagon way and seldom trodden by 
the profane foot of the tourist. It stands 
here in almost primitive wildness, to delight 
the soul of the lover of undisturbed nature. 
It is not to be confounded v/ith a Bald Mount- 
ain of the Blue Ridge, further east in IN^orth 
Carolina — a pigmy namesake, which posed a 
few years ago as a volcano. The Great Bald 
is a healthy adult, not given, like its mole- 
hill namesake to hives, or pains under the 
apron, or in need of paregoric, or soothing 
syrup. It is a staid, settled old mountaiu, 
of good, steady habits and fixed ways, spend- 
ing its nights at home with its family of 
little mountains around it, and always up 
with the sun. 

The views from the Great Bald mountain 
and valley — hill aud river, farms and farm- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 55 



lioiises, and the distant plains of East Ten- 
nessee — spread ont like a map, are grand, and 
the sentiments inspired glorious; bnt there is 
a snblimer sentiment than these inspire. 
There is an awe-inspiring silence npon the 
ocean, when one stands upon the forecastle 
of a calm morning with one frail plank be- 
tween poor mortality and fathomless gulfs 
beneath, and gazes at the limitless expanse 
of blue ocean and azure sky. There is an 
awful silence in the hnsh of bird and beast 
and all the voices of earth and air that goes 
before a storm in the deep recesses of a trop- 
ical forest npon a summer's night, when all 
nature seems to hold its breath, in dread an- 
ticipation, as the storm gathers. 

To me there is a snblimer hnsh when I 
stand npon the Great Bald's green dome, with 
the overarching blue above, the hannts of 
men blue in the far distance below, and no 
voice of mau, bird, beast, insect, or whisper- 
ing summer breeze, to tonch the ear of the ap- 
palled listener at that awful silence. Then 
one feels truly near to the vast Spirit of earth, 
air, and ocean, and feels His infinite vastness 



56 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



and his own infinite littleness. Then one 
feels like Fanst when the earth-spirit came at 
his call and he stood face to face with a dread 
unknown. 

After consultation to-day, at the hour of 
six bells, which is " Grogo," the woi'ld over, 
it was resolved that A. T. Ramp should write 
a genuine Italian sonnet to be read at six 
bells each day, beginning on the morrow. 

Just below the summit, as we entered the 
timber-line fringe of dwarf beeches, our guide 
suggested a visit to a " wildcat still," which 
he said was kept by a desperate " moon- 
shiner" down the monntain to our right. 

"He'll take you-uns fer the 'revenues,' but 
I reckon I kin keep him from shootin'." 

Out for adventure, here was a fine chance 
for a bit of diversion with a spice of danger. 
Concealing our tremors from the guide, with 
cold shivers creeping down our heroic backs, 
we turned off to the right and soon struck a 
blind trail, which led to the beginning of a 
brook, wdiicli flowed from a spring a few 
yards above us and went singing gleefully 
down a broad glade of open dwarf woods. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 57 



which gradually grew into taller timber as 
we descended. The gentle slope which led 
us down for a half hour was covered with 
scattered granite blocks, that seemed to 
have been hewn for building, they were so 
square and regular; and some hewn for Ti- 
tanic castle building, they were of such huge 
proportions. 

Soon the glade narrowed into a gorge and 
the slope became precipitous, so that we had 
to pick our way down a rugged chasm, climb- 
ing from stone to stone, holding on by loose 
boulders or by the trunks of trees and sap- 
lings, or the gnarled roots and stems or lau- 
rels and ivy shrubs. The rock-bound gorge 
kept narrowing as we went; and the brook 
grew, by continual accessions of streamlets 
from either side, until it became a roaring, 
foaming torrent, where speckled trout leaped 
at roving flies, and darted back and forth 
through the crystal waves, flashing in the 
sunlight, tempting to sportsman whom time 
denied the privilege of casting a fly. 

Not content with its stee])-down descent, 
every few yards the stream descended some 



58 THE WAaONAUTS ABROAD. 



more precipitous rapids and ran, bubbling 
and boiling over and among great granite 
rocks, rough and rugged, to calmer reaches 
and peacefuller flowing, to pause on the brink 
of some wild chasm, upon the crest of some 
up-edged ledge, for a wild leap into the deep 
gorge below. We had to wade down the 
rapids, or to creep along the sides, clinging 
to ferns and ivies that scraggily grew along 
the edges of the torrent. The perilous descent 
of the falls was often only to be made by sheer 
climbing and clinging like cats to root, crag, 
and crevice and rough noses of sharp rocks. 
The falls were sometimes sheer-down leaps 
of fifty feet or more, making the descent very 
dangerous. 

The views at the bottom amply repaid the 
toil and peril. Here, at the foot of a lovely 
fall, we halt and refresh the physical man 
from the canteen, stow away a biscuit or two 
with ham accompaniment, light our pii)es and 
sit upon mossy roots of old hemlocks, beneath 
the dark shadows of tall spruces, that reach 
their giant arms into the upper air and sun- 
light. Overhead the i-ugged granite walls 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 59 

frown and lour, surrounding the great amphi- 
theatrical basin upon three sides, and enclos- 
ing, as with rough arms, a lovely circular 
pool into which the foaming waters fall, witu 
a roar that is ever to the " welkin up-soar- 
ing." We gaze upward at the white, bub- 
bling sheet of water as it plunges over the 
ledge and down into the pool, at the dark 
rock walls, at the dripping escarpments and 
moist hollow depths behind the foaming sheet, 
at the fringes of graceful ferns upon the cliff 
edges, at the dark spruces and up into the 
clear serene blue and the yellow sunlight, 
basking upon the topmost boughs. The view 
is a reward worthy all toil and peril. 

Further down we could see the stream 
gliding onward, for a space, peacefully and 
quietly, then bubbling and foaming down a 
steep rapids, to where it 

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem, 

for a flying leap over a steep ledge down into 
another rocky chasm. Over the ledge below 
us and above the crest of the fall, tall spruces 
lifted their dark tops and bathed their top- 



60 THE WAaONAUTS ABROAD. 



most boughs in the perpetual mist of the fall- 
ing waters, and sparkled and glistened in the 
sweet sunlight. 

" T see Jim's at work," said our guide, 
pointing out a thin smoke, curling up far 
down the valley. 

Such succession of falls we clambered over 
and down until we sat and smoked and gazed 
in admiration at the wildest, ruggedest possi- 
ble basin, encircling a vast pool, into which 
the stream leaped with a roar. 

" Down that ar nex' slide we come to Jim's 
still," said our guide. 

*' How on earth does he get anything down 
there," I asked. 

" Eight down the way we come. Hit's the 
only way, er up the other w^ay." 

AYhen we reached the crest of the next 
falls, we gazed doAvn into the wild amphithe- 
atre below, where we could see the curling 
smoke from Jim Brown's "still" fires rising 
up above the pine boughs. 

After vainly waking the mountain echoes, 
until they reverberated along the rock walls 
and reechoed among the crags above and 



THE WAGOJS^AUTS ABROAD. 61 



along the valley in which we were imprisoned, 
our guide said: "I reckon Jim won't shoot 
without axin' who's com in'. Gone to sleep, I 
reckon. Some o' the boys wuz down last 
night, an' some gals an' a fiddle an' had a 
dance, an' Jim's wore out to-day." 

''Does Jim dance?" asked Panier. 

"You bet, Jim do dance." 

We were ashamed to susrsrest our fears to 
the guide that Jim might make a somnambu- 
listic assault and bring down two or three 
unoiFending tourists for "revenues." We 
plucked up heart and clambered down the 
rocky pass, which one man could have de- 
fended against five hundred. When we were 
about half way down, clinging like wild cats 
to the steep sides, the crevices, crags, and 
laurels, a shrill voice cried: "Hold on thar; 
who's that?" 

" Friends," shouted the guide. 

"Friend, wdio? Don't you come down 
hyar. Stop, er I'll pump you full o' lead." 

"' Cyarnt I come?" said the guide. 

"You kin come, Tom; but you jist stop 
them fellers right whar they is." 



62 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



The guide descended, and after some par- 
leying got permission for us to come down. 
A hale, hearty, ruddy-faced, good-natured old 
man of about sixty shook hands heartily and 
drew out a tin cup of '^doubling," holding his 
rifle in the hollow of his arm. 

" ISTow you're hyar, make yourselves at 
home." 

As I looked at the ruddy, healthy moun- 
taineer, quite a contrast Avith most of the tliin, 
wiry fellows of the mountains, I asked him 
what he lived on. 

" Moonshine an' middlin' an' corn bread." 

Only his clear, calm gray eye bespoke the 
desperado he was reputed to be and liis red 
hair the fierce temper he was credited with. 

He pointed out his possessions, consisting 
of a w^orm " still," battered and bruised in en- 
counters with the hated ^^ revenues," a small 
mill for grinding corn and a number of mash 
tubs, baskets, a few old barrels, with " mash," 
" barm," '' singlin's," and " doublin's " set far 
back beneath an overhanging granite cliff", 
which, with the overarching tree toi)s, formed 
perfect roof, shelter, and hiding place. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 63 



" Our guide saj^s you can dance. You 
don't look old, but I wouldn't expect you to 
cut the pigeon wing." 

'^ Jist danced all night las' night with the 
gals. That's how you-uns got down so nigh 
afore I seed you-uns. Hit's dangerous w^ak- 
in' a sleepin' stiller." 

He showed us the still and pointed out 
*^ dents" made by the "revenues." 

"Two o' the fellers as done that ar bit o' 
dirt bit sand right Avbar they stood. When 
okl Betsy talks somebody's got to drap." 

"Did they attack you here?" 

"They hain't never done that; nur never 
will, nuther. I bed her over to the cove, 
'tother side o' the mounting, an' I moved her 
up hyar out'n tbe way like." 

But the revenues did come, and he was 
taken and sent to jail, and to that I am in- 
debted for the accompanying portrait. 

Jim is said to have killed two " revenues" 
and three informers. He said to me, Avhile in 

jail : "' I don't meddle w^i' the d revenues 

when they ain't a meddlin' wi' me; but I kills 
informers like snakes, wharever I finds 'em." 




(G4) 



A MOONSHINER 



THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 65 



Pciiiier here indited an ode to the worm of 
the still, which I give: 

The Woem of the Still. 

Jim Brown's old corn and grist mill, 

By a dam site 
Stood ; and the be-dammed-up rill, 

By the mill site. 
His gin mill stood beneath the hill. 

By a dam site, 
Where crystal waters o'er granites spill, 

By the mill site. 
Where spruces dark shut out the light, 

By a dam site. 
Nor Jim allows, by day or night, 

By the mill site, 
The hated foot of U. S. "revenues," 

By a dam site. 
To tread, with foot profane these avenues. 

By the mill site; 
And, on the bank o' the crystal rill. 

By a dam site, 
Where sate Jim Brown's raw whisky mill, 

By the mill site, 
Crouched the dreadful worm o' the still, 

By a dam site, 
And, smiling, spread seductive snares, 

By the mill site, 



66 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Prolific of head-splitting "tares," 

By a dara site — 
Sate smiling, with sensual charms bedight, 

By the mill site. 
To dance and wassail to invite. 

By a dam site. 
Beware, O mountain men, the siren 

By the mill site; 
In hell a corner hot they're firin', 

By a dam site; 
Beware, O mountain maid, the vixen. 

By the mill site; 
In Hades a place for you they're fixin', 

By a dam site; 
Beware, O Brown, the tempter 

By the mill site, 
Or you'll yet be the sad preemptor, 

By a dam site. 
Of roasting room in nether hell, 

By a dam site. 
For spreading here temptations fell, 

By the mill site. 
For coiling here the worm o' the still, 

By the mill site. 
Beneath the granites by the rill, 

By a dam site, 
Beneath the spruce shades under the hill, 

By the mill site. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 67 



Panier's ode was received by Brutus with 
great applause. I foresaw trouble aud an ef- 
fort to oust my sonnets of their proper place, 
and kept silent. 

Jim liked our lush better than his own beer 
or hot singlings and doublings. He apolo- 
gized by saying that the boys had about 
cleaned him up last night, and no profit 
^^nuther." As he seemed confidential and 
agreeable, I asked him what sort of " gals " 
came out to such place at night. 

" Bless you, they don't come at night. 
Cyarnt git here o' nights. They comes out 
in the evenin' an' stays all night. As for 
gals, they're tip-top good gals. I reckon, 
maybe you'd not count 'em fer much in the 
settlements; an' they hain't got no character 
to talk up, but they're mighty good mountain 
gals." 

After a parting tin cup from our canteen, 
we bade our host good-bye and set out down 
the gorge, a circuitous route of about five 
miles, to avoid going three miles back by the 
way we came; and a rougher, wilder, more 
picturesque gorge I have never seen, and 



68 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



three more wearied tourists never greeted 
supper and beds; but we were glad we had 
endured the hardships and dangers, and felt 
well repaid. 

The next chapter will be devoted to snakes 
and fish. 



CHAPTEE III. 



Now safe the stately salmon sail 

An' trout be-dropped wi' crimson hail. 

(Burns.) 

I PROMISED to give this chapter to snakes 
and fishes; but a moderate use of old rye 

has so exorcised the serpent that I might 
make a chapter on snakes as brief as 
that in the history of that country upon 
" snakes in Iceland." In the mountains one 
hears wonderful stories of snake dens, and 
mountain sides alive with rattlers. Upon my 
first mountain trip I encountered a huge rat- 
tlesnake, and since that time I have seen two 
dead ones. In many summers of fishing 
and hunting in the mountains of ]S^orth Car- 
olina and Tennessee I have encountered only 
three snakes, dead and alive. Our party saw 
no snakes. I am sorry for this; for I have 
always contended that nothing in literature 
exerts such wiiolesome moral influence as a 

good line of snake stories. 

(69) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 71 



Beginning with the sea serpent, in the loft- 
ier reahns of literatnre, and coming down to 
the delicate subject of garter snakes — lioni 
soit qui mat y i^ense — the discriminating stu- 
dent will find that the human fancy and the 
divine faculty of imagination owe more to 
snakes than to any other single agency. I 
need not dwell upon the first serpent. AVhere 
would man be — and woman too — without the 
first serpent? Brutus, who believes in the 
ideal, and eschews realism, agrees that no 
subject is more provocative of the ideal. 
Snake literature is pure. Even the garter 
snake may be dwelt upon and furnish themes 
for story and song, which will not bring the 
blush of shame to the cheek of maiden mod- 
esty. 

We left the Great Bald bright and early 
for the south fork of Indian Creek, stopping 
for directions at Sams's Store — where we 
found the proprietor sunning himself in 
front of his own store. Mr. Sams is one of 
the characters of this region — a genial, jo- 
vial, obliging man, getting along without 
hurry, taking life as it comes, and managing 



72 THE WAGOISTAUTS ABROAD. 



to have it come easy, and yet gathering 
abnnclant gear and accumukiting money, 
acres, stock, and children. 

"We don't need doctors," said he; "our 
only need is for midwives, you can see for 
yourself." When Ben had got through mon- 
keying with a refractory tap with a borrowed 
monkey wrench, we left the main road and 
wound through a deep, rocky canyon, over 
a very steep up and down road to a small 
church at the mouth of Rocky Fork, where 
we were advised to leave our wagon. A 
road cut winding up the steep ledges that 
overhung Rocky Fork, leading from the val- 
leys above down to a mill near the mouth of 
the creek, tempted us to see where we could 
take a wagon, if we tried. ISTo wheeled ve- 
hicle had ever been over it. By hanging 
Brutus and Panier on the upper side and 
pushing at the stern, with Ben using profan- 
ity and the whip, we managed to make about 
two miles of such road as no wagon ever 
ascended before. At one point we met 
a native coming down the hill with a bag 
of corn shipped aboard a small ox. The 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 73 



mill gearing of the ox was like the ox, unique. 
A breast rope tied to both bag ends kept the 
load from slipping backwards. It was gird- 
ed under; and another rope, tied to both bag 
ends, was drawn about the steer's hind legs. 
The animal was steered by a rope run be- 
tween his legs and tied to his horns. The 
bewildered animal had never seen a civilized 
wagon and three Christian gentlemen. It 
took the Wagonauts, Ben, and the ox-driver 
about an hour to get him by. When the 
driver got by he stopped and said. '' You'uns 
is from the settlements, hain't you?" 

We admitted that we came from settle- 
ments. 

"^ Pears like you come from towards the 
Butt. How's huckleberries sellin' over on 
the Big Butt?" 

We were not able to deal with this com- 
mercial question in a way to conceal our 
profound ignorance, and we left him steering 
his ox down to the mill, wondering how three 
men came to be trusted out from home who 
didn't know the state of the huckleberry 
market on the Big Butt. 



74 THE WAGOISTAUTS ABROAD. 



There is more idealization in fish than in 
any other snbject. The theme doesn't com- 
pare with snakes in deep moral significance; 
bnt in the matter of the pure ideal fish beat 
all nature. 1 come to this subject with a 
painful sense of my own incapacity. I know 
not how I shall satisfy the multitude unless 
another miracle shall make a few small fishes 
go a long way. 

Letting ourselves down to the creek, down 
steep cliffs, some two hundred feet, through 
laurels and ivies and clinging vines and over 
rough rocks, we whipped the stream for two 
or three hundred yards without a single 
"jump " of a trout. Reaching shady water, 
the sport began. I secured the first speck- 
led beauty; Brutus followed; and Panier 
came last, and then beat us all fishing. 
Rocky Fork is a noted trout stream, and as 
rough as any I ever saw, not excepting the 
Hell Hollow Fork of Clark's Creek. Com- 
ing down at an angle of thirty degrees, it 
winds amongst great masses of granite and 
piles of drift logs, under a dense shade of 
giant hemlocks, or spruce pines, as they are 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 75 



called locally, in a deep, narrow gorge, whose 
steep walls rise high on both sides, their 
crests unseen in the dense vegetation. Its 
banks are lined with an almost impenetrable 
growth of gnarled, knotted, and interlaced 
laurel and ivy. It is labor, but labor that 
physics pain, to clamber over huge rocks, 
moss-grown, wet and slippery, to leap from 
round stone to sharp ledge, to poise oneself 
upon the crown of a smooth " biscuit " rock, 
looking for the next footing, to whip pools 
and rapids with the dancing fly, intensely ea- 
ger and ever expectant for the leap of a trout. 

These delights may be varied as some un- 
crossable pool, some unwadable reach, or 
some unscalable ledge blocks the way, 
chock-a-block, and drives the sportsman to 
drag himself and his rod through the tangled 
laurel. As Mr. Lincoln said: '^This is 
about the kind of thing to be liked by peo- 
ple who like this kind of thing." I've always 
succeeded in believing that I like it; and 
Brutus and Panier were continually exclaim- 
ing: "O how we're enjoying ourselves! " 

The brook trout is a slender, scaleless fish, 



76 THE WAaOXAUTS ABROBD. 



with huge mouth, dark back, and light sides, 
beautifully speckled with red and gold. In 
the ideal it weighs from two to foui* pounds. 
A dull realistic view reduces it in practi- 
cal fishing to a quarter of a pound Troy. 
Whether it take the bait at the surface, or 
leap out of the water, or seize the bait in the 
water, it always darts at its prey. The sports- 
man uses an artificial fiy, a grasshopper, a 
butterfiy, dough, or a red worm, and an ex- 
cellent bait a.t times is an insect, found at 
the bottom of streams, where it envelops 
itself in an armor of gravels, woven together 
by some viscous fluid, as an assurance that 
it is good for something to prey upon. Bait 
good at one hour is not attractive at another; 
and sometimes it is best to fish deep, at oth- 
ers merely to whip the surface. Generally 
the best time for trout fishing is before sunup 
and after sundown. 

At six bells A. T. Ramp was called to read 
the promised sonnet, and read as follows: 

To Mrs. Mary . 

Ah! leave thy grief! Be merry, mine, to-night. 
Love courses through my veins like fire-lmed wine; 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 77 



My heart's ablaze with ecstacy divine; 
My fervid soul's aglow with rosy light. 
The swallows southward take their mournful way; 
But why should we go sad with wintry brow? 
Let's snatch from care and chain the golden now, 
And pluck life's budding blossoms while we may. 
I know that envious Death rides on the blast; 
And cold Decay lurks in the winter near — 
Already Nature mourneth flower and leaf; 
But Nature's quick'ning love can summer past 
Call back, and clothe therewith the dying year; 
And so my love shall burgeon on thy grief. 

An active sportsman, beginning early and 
whipping two or three miles of good stream, 
should catch one or two hundred trout. Be- 
ginning at 10 o'clock, when it is hard to 
lure the trout from his lurking place, our 
joint catch was not above seventy-five, al- 
though we fished about four miles of rough 
water. After exhausting our allotted time, 
we enjoyed a plunge in a fine pool, topping 
ofi" with a douche in a cascade, pouring down 
a smooth rock trough and polishing up with 
a libation to snakes by way of taking ofi* the 
chill. 

It is one of the commonest errors of human 



78 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 

judgment to flout the dangers of the road we 
have gone over. This mistake led Panier 
into an acrobatic exhibition over a pile of 
driftwood and down a ledge of smooth rocks, 
that would have done credit to a ground and 
lofty tumbler. Brutus was not content with 
bodily injuries of a sui-bruisal nature. En- 
trusted with the supply of snake medicine, 
he proved as untrustworthy as Judas with 
the bag. Poising himself upon the slippery 
edge of a huge rock for a leap into futurity, 
his foot slipped. O for inspiration for a 
poem upon the leaps that were never leapt! 
Brutus went sliding down the slippery face 
of the rock, holding fast, like grim death, to 
the sad neck of an unfortunate quart bottle. 
Coming up with a round turn at the bottom, 
careless of abrasions, he triumphantly held 
up the neck of the bottle, while the snake 
medicine went weeping down the obdurate 
side of that unsympathetic, uncheered rock, 
like oil down Aaron's wasteful beard. When 
consciousness of his crime overcame him, 
Brutus sank back with a lost look into the 
realm of things that were, and wept bitterly. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 79 



Panier and I bound him fast to a sapling 
hemlock and tried and convicted and sen- 
tenced him to be hanged, susj^endere per 
colle7n, as the law hath it. The culprit 
meanly took advantage of his constitution- 
al right of appeal from Philip as a con- 
victing court to Philip in some other con- 
dition. 

After letting our wagon down into the 
road, we made four or five miles of rough 
road and halted for dinner. Across the creek 
from the spring where we halted, a shapely 
sunbonnet, surmounting a comely form, be- 
neath the eaves of a neat log cabin, led Brutus 
to undertake the preparation of the fish, to 
which I weakly yielded. After a long and 
hungry delay, Panier volunteered to see 
what was detaining Brutus. After a reason- 
able waiting for Panier, I instructed Ben 
to look after my fate in case I should fail to 
appear, and I went to look after Brutus and 
Panier. I had provided all that was nec- 
essary to fry a dish of trout to make Brillat- 
Savarin smack his lips, not neglecting a bot- 
tle of genuine olive oil. I found the trout 



80 THE ayago:n^auts abroad. 

cooked done, fried, and hardening to a crisp 
on a tray by the fire, an old woman at a 
spinning wheel and Brutus and Panier, sur- 
rounded by a dozen tow-headed children, 
plying a comely mountain damsel of about 
eighteen summers and flaxen hair, with all 
sorts of useless inquiries, having no reference 
to dinner that I could see. 

None can ever know the trouble I have had 
on this trip with a weak and useless curiosity 
on the part of my companions, which is al- 
ways coincident with a good-looking damsel. 
I find them continually addressing useless in- 
quiries to maiden inexperience, when I want 
to be eating, sleeping, or moving. 

Recurring to snakes, a sad thing happened 
to-day. Driving, pipe in mouth, after din- 
ner, along the margin of a placid stream, 
Panier suddenly leaped from the wagon, ex- 
claiming: "Ah! give me a weapon — a pistol, 
quick! " 

Brutus handed him a pistol. Bang, bang 
— ^Ye shots rang out upon the still aii*. 

"Another pistol, quick! " shouted Panier, 
as he danced along the bank of the creek, his 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 81 



eyes gleaming with eager and intense gaze 
into the clear water. Bang, bang. 

"There, Ben/' he shouted. Ben gave me 
the lines and leaped from the wagon. " There 
— under that rock, Ben ! " Our driver seized 
a small fence rail and began vigorously pok- 
ing about under the rocks, turning over 
boulders. Bang, bang. "There he is." 
"What is it, Mr. Pannel?" shouted Ben. 
"The biggest snake since the original ser- 
pent," cried Panier. Ben worked, groped, 
and sweated; Brutus reloaded the pistols; 
Panier banged away. After humoring for 
a full hour this tribute to the quality of our 
booze, which had thus magnified a small 
water moccasin, Brutus got down and took 
Panier firmly and resolutely by the arm, 
gently whispering: "Panier, there's noth- 
ing there." Panier turned upon him with 
a wild look of incredulous anger and — 

"Yonder, see!" Bang. "Aha, there he 
goes. Pve done him up." 

Brutus led him gently to his seat, and we 
went sadly on our way. 

N. B. — True, but very highly colored. 
6 



82 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



Our next stop was for the night at Erwin. 
"While we were sitting in front of the tavern, 
a gentleman with a marvelous red nose — a 
nose that would have taken first prize at the 
promontory of noses, took a seat and began 
to make himself agreeable. ^^ Isn't your 
name Bardolph," said Panier, with a cool 
glance at the vast red nose, and a fit refer- 
ence to Fallstaff's red-nosed friend, of 
whose nose Dame Quickly said of the dying 
man: "A saw a flea on Bardolph's nose, an 
a thought it was a soul a burning in hell." 
For a moment Brutus and I sat, scarcely 
daring to breathe. Panier was tempting 
fate. The mountain man grew redder of 
nose and redder of face, and there stole 
over his brow an expression which meant: 
'^ This man's a guyin' of me; and ef he be, 
he's a dead man." Panier's coolness and 
the forbearance of his friends, who sat smile- 
less, saved his life. A friendly expression 
came over the face of the nose, and its OAvner 
said: ^^^o, my name's Squib; I'm puttin' up 
lightnin' rods." Not even that fitness of 
name, occupation, and nose with Panier's 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 83 



Bardolphian misnomer could provoke a smile 
on the part of Panier's anxious friends. 

I might describe the supper, the biscuits, 
the corn dodger, beefsteak, the hot-mush 
feather beds, which are yet allowed to torture 
human beings in remote spots; but I forbear. 
Night's ebon pall overspreads the rotund 
earth; mountain and valley are leveled and 
made one hue by thick darkness; clouds ob- 
scure Diana's pure rays; Panier is writh- 
ing with nightmare, wrestling with serpents; 
Brutus snores. In that condition I leave 
them until the next chapter. 



CHAPTEK ly. 



A mountaiu maiden, very fair, 
Buxom, blythe, and debonaire. 

THERE are several ways to the Roan 
Mountain, the easiest being to Roan Sta- 
tion, Johnson County, Tenn., and thence by 
carriage to CJoudland, on the summit. Five 
wagon ways ascend the mountain — two on 
the Tennessee and three on the Carolina side. 
The Wagonauts chose a winding jaunt around 
through the Carolina mountains and a pic- 
turesque and difficult ascent on the Carolina 
side. Our way led up Limestone Cove, 
through a broad valley by the side of JN^orth 
Indian Creek, a broad, clear, beautiful stream, 
fringed with elders and laurels. Yellow stub- 
bles, meadows, and cornfields stretch on 
either side to the Blue Mountains, which wall 
in the cove from the big world outside and 
cut off here a wide, fertile, happy valley, 
which needs only transportation to make it 
the home of a prosperous community. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 85 



Before us and to our right rises the loug, 
whale-backed ridge of the Unaka Mountain 
— very like a whale and bare in patches, with 
what are called " huckleberry balds," which 
differ from the balds that lie above the timber 
line. Unaka, or Unicoi, is a generic term 
generally applied to a range of mountains, 
but here fastened upon a single peak. 

Rattling along over a level road, we entered 
a long lane. We had lifted up our voices in 
song, when memory suddenly brought up 
recollections of my last visit to this region. 
A cool twilight scene came back as vividly 
as if it had been yesterday. My father, my 
younger brother, and myself rode along this 
very lane, beguiling the loneliness of the dusk 
with song. The past beyond the gulf of war 
came back in clear outlines — not with grief, 
not with bitterness, but with that quiet sad- 
ness of mingled sorrow and pleasure that lies 
so hazily blue in the past, with shadows 
sweetly tempered by genial sunlight. Two 
of those voices are forever silent for this 
world. My voice was hushed and our song 
came to an end. I sat for a mile lost in rev- 



86 THE WAGOI^AUTS ABROAD. 



ery — a fabric of mingled woof and warp, of 
dark and bright threads, woven by the mar- 
velous shuttle of memory upon time's won- 
derful loom. 

Passing by the northwest end of the Unaka, 
leaving it to our right and rear, we began to 
ascend, winding up steep hillsides. Valley 
farms became hillside fields, hills grew to 
mountains, and soon we were upon the wood- 
ed slopes of Irou Mountain. After winding 
upward for miles, a turn in the road, in Iron 
Mountain Gap, brought us in full view of the 
Roan, with its dark spruce and fir crowned 
bluffs, its heavily wooded slopes and bold 
cliffs of a thousand sheer feet or more of tow- 
ering rock. Cloud- crowned, this grandest 
of all mountains stood dwarfing all surround- 
ing peaks. Between us and the Roan lay a 
lovely valley, with many a hill and hollow, 
whose myriad streams were sending up each 
its contribution of fleecy mist, to climb the 
mountain sides and join the grey nubia that 
hung over the Roan. 

A view nigher at hand called for a moment's 
Platonic admiration — perhaps Plutonic in the 



THE WAaOlS^AUTS ABROAD. 87 



glowing breast of the gushing Brutus. Two 
robust, handsome mountain girls, conscious 
of their own charms, sat in the door of a cabin 
by the roadside, smiling at each other and for 
Brutus and his dark moustache. The mists 
gathered abont as Panier and I gazed at the 
glorious mountain scene and Brutus camped 
his soft eye upon the nigher view. Fine rain 
began to fall, shutting ont all but the near 
view. Brutus thought it would be w^ise to 
seek shelter in the cabin, and expressed great 
concern for Panier's health. In the in- 
terest of a lowland maiden, we ordered Ben 
to drive on. Fortunately for him, Brntus's 
impressible heart is very soft and like the 
flesh of the fellow who was "stobbed" nine- 
teen times and six to the "holler" at N^apo- 
leon. Ark., who said: "Stranger, look after 
them fellows I've been a ventilatin'; I've got 
powerful healin' flesh." But, alas! although 
his wounds heal by first intention, what en- 
during pangs he must leave behind as that 
dark moustache, far-gone smile, and Hamletic 
eye career through the country. 

Secured against the gentle rain, which we 



8S THE WAGO^AUTS ABIIOAD. 



found only a pleasing variety, during the 
only half day that we had rain, we rolled on 
down the Carolina slope of Iron Mountain, 
meeting upon the way a solitary commercial 
traveler, sitting in lonely grandeur amongst 
his vast trunks and boxes. He gazed ahead, 
without so much as a curious glance, as Ben 
and his driver saluted. He reminded one of 
Eothen's account of meeting a British coun- 
tryman seated upon his camel on the great 
desert between Palestine and Cairo, when 
the two exclusive Britons passed each oth- 
er within twenty feet and merely touched 
caps. 

The drummer is usually a genial fellow, 
full of a ready humanity. He is, moreover, 
the most abused of men, in view of the actual 
sins he commits. In general he is a thorough 
business man, a man of the world, a pioneer 
of commerce, the right arm of business cen- 
ters, a blessing to remote regions, and a civ- 
ilizing agent, whom a small percentage of 
the unworthy have given a bad name. We 
found that the ubiquitous drummer, with his 
feminine array of trunks and boxes, had 



THE WAGO^AXJTS ABKOAD. 89 



threaded and raided, every x^ig-patli in the 
monntain regions. We heard of him every- 
where. Indeed, we fonnd that sweet recollec- 
tions of engaging commercial travellers lin- 
gering in the bosoms of monntain maidens 
were almost the only antidote to the taking 
charms of Brutus, 

On the far slopes of Iron Mountain we 
halted under a broad-branched tree, secure 
from the fine-spun rain, by the side of a bub- 
bling spring, and enjoyed our midday meal, 
with snake preventive accompaniment. Per- 
sons have been known to imbibe embryo 
serpents with crude unqualified water. 

When the duties of six bells had been duly 
discharged and the canteen had retired with 
a clear conscience of duty well performed, 
A. T. Ramp was loudly called by the impa- 
tient Wagonauts to read his promised sonnet, 
which he did, as follows: 

To A Lily of the Valley. 

All! love! this gladsome night of leafy June 
Invites iis twain, with balmy bud and flower, 
To linger late in fragrant summer bower, 
Basked in the chequered light of harvest moon, 



90 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



Where Dian lifts her amber plenilnne: 
More witching far, of night, this grateful hour, 
That dewy sheen and star-gleam richly dowser, 
Than, in its glorious glow, the garish noon. 
Ah ! softly throbs thy gentle heart 'gainst mine— 
(And leanest thou on me with perfect faith?) 
Nor recks the rude impulse from mine to thine — 
Ah ! love ! a horrid thought my soul affraith ! 
Oh God!!! — Dost thou against my heart incline*^ 
Or, death in life! do I enfold thy wraith. 

Now we go rolling down Big Rock Creek, 
onr road winding along the edge of a rocky- 
gorge, deep down in which the wild stream 
boiled and foamed, a series of deep pools, 
swift, smooth reaches, roaring cataracts, 
hissing cascades, and rongh rapids, with 
green fields and meadows rising high npon 
the hills on either side. Here and there some 
qnaint old mill, of a kind fonnd only in the 
monntains, and of a type as old as settle- 
ments in these valleys, sat deep down in the 
rocky gorge, with wheel something after the 
tnrbine pattern, and arrangement with refer- 
ence to the water, and an upright, perpen- 
dicular shaft conveying the power to the 
buhrs. ]^ow an old and now a new sawmill 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 91 



occupied the post of honor by a clam site, 
and piles of pine, hemlock, maple, and wild 
cherry lumber showed the importance of the 
lumber trade. 

The huge Roan Mountain now hung- over 
us, with its sheer granite cliffs, its woody 
sides, and its dark crown of balsams. Choos- 
ing the Little Rock Creek road as the worst, 
the roughest, and lil\:ely to be the most pic- 
turesque, we turned to the right, crossing a 
high ridge into Little Rock Creek Valley, 
and began the actual ascent of the mountain 
whose sides we had been flanking cross- 
ridgewise. To our right, as we wound up 
the creek valley, I recognized the old Briggs 
house, whence I made the ascent in 1856. 
It was here that Porte Crayon stopped about 
thirty years ago. Poor Strothei"! the skillful 
hand that penned the finest travel sketches 
written since ^^Eothen" somehow lost its 
cunning when the author became an office- 
holder and allowed his literary connections 
to set him squarely against his own people in 
their death struggle. Aside from the issues 
and results of the struggle, the highest pa- 



92 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



triotism at last roots deeply and clings close- 
ly and tenderly in the sweet soil upon one's 
own spring branch. By all means let a man 
expand and broaden, if he expand with him 
a profound feeling that his own hollow is the 
sweetest spot on earth. 'No other sentiment 
ever wrought any good or enduring thing. 

It was growing dark wdien the Wagonants 
bethought them that they must stop some- 
where, unless they meant to seek lodging 
with broken bones down some deep gorge. 
A small room in the rear of a new frame 
house, roofed and floored, but unweather- 
boarded, loomed up dimly in the misty twi- 
light. Vague forms peered out from between 
the naked studdings. " Gentleman," I said, 
''here's our last chance; we must put our 
best foot foremost. One must go in who can 
inspire confidence." I went. 

" Is the gentleman of the house at home? " 
I asked. 

A sweet voice replied: "My father and 
mother have gone to the upper farm to save 
the grass." 

I hardly expected to stay under the cir- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 93 



cumstances, and asked the way to the next 
house; but I explained that we were belated 
and likely to break our necks if we tried the 
road further. 

" If you can put up with what I have, you 
can stay here," she replied. 

Feeling that we were on probation, we 
brought in our movables, carefully keeping 
the demijohn shady, lest we might alarm our 
fair hostess. Emma Jean went about our 
evening meal and Minnie washed the dishes 
and set the table. In a half hour we sat 
down to a table graced with clean table cloth; 
brightly polished China and glass, and smok- 
ing egg-bread, broiled ham, coffee, fresh 
eggs, sweet butter, and fresh buttermilk 
tempted to gluttony. The demijohn sat and 
looked on reproachfully, untapped, and no 
empty demijohn ever looked upon a thirstier 
party of Wagonauts; but we deemed it our 
duty, as gentlemen, to avoid giving our^ fair 
hostess alarm. 

Supper over, Emma Jean tidied up the lit- 
tle room, remade the beds, and then mod- 
estly, with the air of a well-bred lady, said, 



94 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



'^Gentlemen, you can sleep here; good night," 
and she, with the children, retired to a log 
cabin some two hundred yards away, as fear- 
less here alone with two small children, in a 
deep mountain gorge, upon a rainy night, 
with three strangers, as if a company of 
knights mounted guard about her couch. 

Canova should have seen Emma Jean be- 
fore he carved his lovely Hebe. She was 
about seventeen, lithe, lissom, and exquisitely 
formed, with light-brown hair, fair complex- 
ion, sweet but firm blue eyes, that looked 
modestly but confidently, small hands, and 
delicate feet encased in neatly fitting shoes. 
Moreover she was ready, bright, and perfectly 
self-possessed, modest in miefiy delicate in 
speech, and sweet-voiced. This is no fancy 
sketch of our hostess; but it is not to be 
taken as a description of the typical moun- 
tain maiden. Such women are rare in this 
region. In a latter-day Southern novel of 
the mountains she would figure as something 
lovely in face and form, speaking Hottentot. 

We left Emma Jean with lingering part- 
ing, prompted by genuine admiration for 



THE WAG0:N^AUTS ABllOAD. 95 



womanly sweetness, modesty, and frank in- 
dependence, and wound slowly up the valley, 
gazing at her vanishing form as she moved, 
pail in hand, amongst the cows. The sun 
was shining brightly as we began the ascent 
of the Roan, which I reserve for the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTEE V. 



" Up — idee. " ( Longfellow. ) 

TO the tourist who knows that fun is a rel- 
ative thing and enjoyment an imaginary 
state of the mind, donned as one puts on a 
coat, as often in rugged wilds and desei-t 
places as in gilded salons^ I commend the 
Glen Air ascent of the Eoan. Its views are 
finer, its ascents steeper, its hardships greater. 
A hundred brooks coming down into Little 
Eock Creek from both sides of the valley in- 
vite the tourist to stay awhile and whip a 
mile or so of noisy, tumultuous waters and 
then to find rest sweeter in his wagon seat. 
The best s^^ort we have had was found in a 
stream one could step across. 

After winding far to the right and as far to 
the left, we look down u])on our road a thou- 
sand feet beneath us, where sweet farmhouses 
nestle in green orchards and fresh meadows 

stretch far away down the valley. The wind- 

(96) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 97 



ing creek is seen far below, foaming over 
rough granite ledges, pausing to turn a 
thrifty sawmill or to grind a meager grist 
for a waiting mill boy. Yonder the dark 
granite jaws of its deep gorge open to swal- 
low some gentle brook that laughs and dances 
down some flowery dell, flashing in the sun- 
light, as youthful maiden glee dances into 
and is swallowed by matrimony. Yonder, 
between two steep ridges, enclosing a narrow 
vale, we can see almost the full length of a 
laughing brook, from source to mouth, gleam- 
ing in the sunlight, as 

Aretliusa arose 

From lier conch of snows 
In the Acrocerannian mountains — 

Erom cloud and from crag 

With many a jag, 
Shepherding her bright fountains. 

Now the road grows steep and craggy as 
"we rise to the backbone of some bold ridge 
and walk and push and scotch and " blow 
our good team of smoking horses. Our as- 
cent is a going to and fro and up and down, 

.across steep ridges and deep glens, drained 

7 






98 THE WAGO:>rAUTS ABROAD. 



by tempting trout brooks. Now a lovely 
grass farm opens up on our way, lying high 
up on the Roan, with the finest meadows of 
redtop and timothy and excellent houses and 
outhouses. From this point we can see, in a 
gap above the timber line, the bald ridge of 
the Roan's indented backbone; and, descend- 
ing some hundreds of yards, the great tram- 
way built by some adventurous speculator, 
upon which to draw up hundreds of tons of 
wild cherry to the summit of the Roan, 
whence it was carried by a tramway of twelve 
miles down the Tennessee side to Roan Moun- 
tain Station and shipped thence to Boston. 

Another steep climb and a turn in the road 
discloses a clear cool spring and a huge gran- 
ite rock for a dining table. Snake medicine, 
old ham, ox tongue, beaten biscuit, corned 
beef, anchovy-stuffed olives, and water as 
clear as ever highest cloud distilled upon 
loftiest mountain's brow, to be rectified by 
sparkling mica sands and run over cool, 
mossy stones, for the qualification of old rye, 
invited the tired Wagonauts to dinner and re- 
pose. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 99 



After the hands upon the dial had marked 
six bells and the canteen had discharged its 
wagonautic duty, Panier and Blanc vocifer- 
ously called A. T. Eamp to read his sonnet 
for the day, which he did, as follows: 

To Margaret, My Wife. 

Come, love! — The sofa by the winter fire! — 

And, leaning, cosy-like, let's write a sonnet. 

Come nearer, I'll remove thy wraps and bonnet. 

Sweetly in unison we'll strike the lyre. 

Ah! bless the jealous clasp! the clinging knot! 

I've touched her cheek! I feel her bosom throbbing! 

I see her conscious blushes heart's blood robbing! 

The song? Break not this charm of happy lot! 

My love! sit here — we will not sonnets write. 

Draw nigher, love! — here on my trembling knee, 

Enfolded in my arms. We'll sonnets live. 

I cannot write. Why all the poetry's quite 

Gathered within the swelling heart of me ; 

And that to thee — but not in verse — I'll give. 

Mr. Ramp said, when he had finished with 
great applause, that he regarded the sonnet 
to his wife as his best; but she, like a jealous 
woman, insisted that the first and second 
were by far the best, although she couldn't 



100 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



see, for her part, why a strange woman should 
inspire a man like his own wife. 

It was then moved by Panier, and second- 
ed by Brutus, that the daily sonnet be ad- 
journed. Carried, Kamp in the negative. 

As vfe sat offering burnt offerings of fra- 
grant tobacco in old mellow pipes, Brutus in- 
scribed upon a large white fungus a marvel- 
ously sweet poem to Emma Jean, whom he 
addressed under the guise of a glen rose. I 
am sorry that I neglected to take a copy of 
this remarkable ode. The following stanza 
is all I can recall: 

All, Emma Jean! Ah, Emma Jean! 

Rose o' the mountain glen; 
Thy bonnie e'en, wi' dewy sheen, 

Lovely 'yond mortal ken, 
Have pierced wi' Cnpid's cruel dart. 

My winsome Emma Jean, 
Profoundly within my throbbing heart. 

Wounding deep and keen. 

Even the lazy pipe and the indolent siesta 
will come to untimely end, and now^ we are 
off again, soon finding leveler road among 
the gnarled dwarf beeches, lifting us grad- 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 101 



ually into the gap on the Tennessee line. 
Thence we climb by devious ways up 
amongst the dark spruces and balsams 
which crown the bluff heights, where ele- 
vation gives them their proper arctic cli- 
mate. At last we are on top spinning along 
a beautiful road, in sight of the Cloudland 
Hotel, which occupies an elevation of almost 
seven thousand feet and nearly the highest 
point of the Roan. Undergoing the usual 
critical inspection of new-comers at a sum- 
mer resort, we rubbed off, poured out liba- 
tions to snakes, enjoyed a square dinner, dis- 
missed our driver and team, and tried to look 
as if we belonged at Cloudland. Ben parted 
from us with abundant regrets; said he'd 
been many a round with drummers and tour- 
ists, but the Wagonauts took the cake. He 
dwelt especially upon the Christian i-ecogni- 
tion by the Wagonauts of a profound fact in 
broad humanity: that a driver, although he 
cannot change his skin, and he may have 
brought it with him from the jS^iger, as black 
as the ace of spades, yet has soles to save 
from snakes as well as the rest. Ben said 



102 THE wago:n^auts abkoad. 

that, while of course he'd rather be on the 
inner paleface circle, yet as a matter of 
creature comforts, it was something to have 
been recognized when the flowing bowl was 
sparkling. 

In thirty years the changes in the Eoan 
are confined to its hotel, outhouses, roads, 
fences, and telephone wire. Otherwise it is 
as I saw it last thirty-one years ago, when it 
was a remote, untenanted wild, without cabin 
or hut; its acres of fertile soil bare of tim- 
ber, except where balsams and spruces skirt 
the bluff edges, and chiefly covered with vast 
patches of rhododendrons, acres of heathers, 
and natural meadows of various wild grasses, 
with here and there a space of two or three 
acres naked of soil — in mountain speech, a 
'' cowlick." Great masses of glacier-marked 
granites, covered w^ith beautiful lichens, are 
scattered over the ground. Changeable every 
hour in its varying aspects of mist and cloud, 
this grand old mountain is like the ever 
changing ocean, also unchangeable and ever 
the same. 

I looked for but was nnable to recognize 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 103 



the huge flat rock on the top of which I 
spent a dismal night on my last visit here 
thirty-one years ago. Reaching the snmmit 
at twilight, prepared only for wild tnrkey 
shooting next day, a heavy rain and thnnder 
storm came np, drenching the whole face of 
the mountain. Masses of flame and zigzag 
darts of Are played along the ground, light- 
ing up with w^eird glare the green grass, the 
frowning spruces and firs, and the rugged 
granite masses. It rained all night. Fire 
was out of the question. The side of the 
mountain was one sheet of water. I crawled 
up on a huge flat rock and tried to think I 
was enjoying myself. The thunder rolled 
and crashed and growled along' the ground, 
making grand music for Titans to dance 
stately minuets to; and the vivid lightning 
flashes furnished torchlight to dance by. 

It was upon that trip that I saw the curi- 
ous reflection upon the mist which is called 
the " Brocken mountain spectre," from its oc- 
currence upon the Hartz mountains of Ger- 
many. I Avas broiling sundry bits of fragrant 
bacon by a fire I had succeeded in kindling. 



104 THE WAGO:^rAUTS ABROAD. 



Hearing what I took to be the call of a tur- 
key, I turned to get my gun, and staggered 
back, for a moment appalled by the giant fig- 
ure that loomed up before me in the mist, 
making threatening gestures as I recoiled and 
lifted my hands in momentary terror. Then 
it stood still as I stood trembling, as if it had 
me securely in the grasp of some spell I 
could not break. Like all good boys, I'd 
been called a bad boy until I half believed it; 
and few boys of seventeen can see the devil 
without blinking. Although I knew that it 
was but the fog spectre of the Koan, it was 
as terrible to me for a moment as if it had 
been a real Titan. It is so weird and uncan- 
ny that none can see it for the first time 
without a sense of awe. 

To one who loves nature in all its varying 
aspects, Avithout caring for its scientific side, 
the Hoan is a source of perpetual delight, 
with its starry nights, its varying cloud ef- 
fects, its sweej^ing mists, its glorious views 
of mountain, plain, and field, its bosky for- 
est recesses, and deep gorges, its crystal 
springs, its rugged cliffs, fringed Avith dark 



THE WAGO:NrAUT8 ABKOAD. 105 



fii's and festooned with wild vines, its vast 
bald mountain plain, its riches of plant life, 
ferns and flowers. To the scientist it is a 
very treasure house, said to be, in its flora, 
the richest in the world. The student of 
natural history finds less to interest him, 
but still something. Here the robin nests 
and the snowbird digs and plants his cosy 
home beneath the edge of some mossy cush- 
ion; here the raven is heard hoarsely croak- 
ing, not cawing, sailing like the turkey buz- 
zard, not flapping like the crow. Raven and 
eagle build here their nests amongst inacces- 
sible crags, where only spruce and fir find 
footing. Poisonous snakes are unknown, 
and a small harmless serpent is rare; and by 
a wise provision of nature, here, where ven- 
omous snakes are not found, the invigorating 
air makes snake medicine a superfluity. 

If a reference to history may be allowed, 
it is said that here, upon the bald plains of 
the Roan's highest peak, the forces from 
Tennessee and Virginia met on their way to 
King's Mountain, and Rev. Samuel Doak, 
D.D., ofl'ered a fervent Scotch Presbyterian 



lOG THE AVAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



prayer for the success of the expedition; and 
Sevier, Evans, and Shelby went on in full 
faith to the destruction of British power in 
America. 

I reserve a further account of the Roan 
and our departure for the next and last chap- 
ter. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The point of one white star is quivering still, 
Deep in the orange light of widening noon; 
Beyond the purple mountains, through a chasm 
Of wind-divided mist, the darker lake 
Reflects it. Now it wanes; now it gleams again, 
As the waves fade and, as the burning threads 
Of woven cloud unravel in the pale air, 
'Tis lost and, through yon peaks of snow, 
The roseate sunlight quivers. ( Shelley. ) 

THE Roan is the true home of the clouds 
and rightly named Cloudland, as the cen- 
tering point of all the fogs and mists of the 
valleys below, for leagues around, to which 
they gather and whence they disperse upon 
their fructifying and cooling missions to the 
lower mountains, valle^^s, and distant hills 
and plains. ^Notwithstanding a large con- 
densation upon soil, rocks and vegetation, 
the air is pure, cool, and seldom unpleasantly 
moist. 

The Roan is unsurpassed for the beauty 

(107) 




CO 
H 
O 
u 
li. 

Li. 

U 

Q 

o 
o 



(108) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 109 



of its cloud effects. In all that is grandest 
in nature it stands supreme: in a million 
changeful effects of mist in valleys and upon 
mountain sides below; in dark rain clouds 
in the lowlands and upper mountain slopes; 
in climbing clouds sweeping up the ridges, 
attracted by the cool mountain top; in far 
thunder and the sheen of broad flashing and 
sharp and zigzag darts of lightning; in 
clouds sweeping across the summit, veiling 
its distant peaks, creating weird and singu- 
lar effects; in nigh rain storm, Avith thick 
darkness and thunder and lightning of rare 
sublimity and grandeur. 

We stand upon Sunrise Rock astride the 
narrow cleft that marks the State line, and 
yonder to the east, a little by south, towers 
in gloomy grandeur the great cloud-com- 
peller of all the mountain region of the 
Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, the lofty 
fir-covered peaks of the grim Black, to whom 
even the Roan doffs his cloudy chapeau as 
the very Jove of cloud-compellers and storm- 
gatherers. Further eastward is Lynnville 
Gap, with the bold, square front of Table 



110 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Rock upon one side, and the Hawkbill npon 
the other; and the pale, far blue of the Blue 
Ridge, stretching in the dim distance, over- 
looking: the Piedmont and tidewater regions 
to the east and coastward. To the south 
towers the cloud-capped summit of the 
Great Bald, himself no laggard in the busi- 
ness of cloud-gathering. Further westward 
are the Big Butt range and Rich Mount- 
ain group, and in the far distance. Paint 
Rock, near the Asheville road. N^earer, al- 
most at our feet, the long, low Buffalo Ridge 
stretches unbroken for miles across the head 
of the great valley of East Tennessee, sepa- 
rating valley-plains from mountain regions 
and lying near Jonesboro. Beyond this and 
over its southern end the beautiful valley of 
the I^ola Chuckee extends along the base of 
the mountains, westward to its junction with 
the valley of the French Broad, whence they 
go to form the Tennessee. 

Further northward is the valley of East 
Tennessee, from the Alleghanies to the Cum- 
berland Table Land, embracing the valley of 
the Nola Chuckee, of the further French 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. Ill 



Broad, of Holston, Watauga, Clinch, and 
Powell Rivers and the peaks of Haystack, 
Chimney Top, and House Mountains. To 
the northwest the dim outline of the Cumber- 
land Mountains looms up in the grey light. 
Further east and north lie far vague lines of 
mountain in West Virginia. Yonder north 
by east a river has cut an opposite ridge 
squarely down upon both sides for many 
mile^, leaving a curious gap and scooping 
out a deep channel and a broad plain between 
the opposite sides. Northward lie the Vir- 
ginia mountains, the tall Grandfather and 
the Peaks of Otter. 

We have now boxed the compass, sweep- 
ing around the horizon with the far view, 
looking into ]N"orth and South Carolina, Ten- 
nessee, Georgia, West Virginia, Kentucky, 
and Virginia. In the near lie the mountain 
regions of Tennessee and North Carolina, 
one tumbled, jumbled, confused mass of peaks 
and ranges, mountain piled upon mountain, 
as if the Titans had fought their last battle 
here and piled Ossa upon Pelion. 

All around us, in the deep valleys, narrow 




o 
O 

DC 

H 
ai 

CO 

z 

D 

CO 



(112) 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 113 



gorges, high vales and broad valley-plain of 
the Toe — a vile corruption of a beautiful In- 
dian name — about Bakersville and Burnsville, 
lies one calm, motionless, sleeping sea of 
white mist, pale and ghostly, with broad 
bays, deep inlets, and winding rivers. Every 
stream, where every valley has its winding 
brook, has furnished its share of white mist 
to fill up the valley. In this ocean of ghost- 
ly mist lie blue islands of mountain peaks, 
hilltops and ridges, bold, jutting headlands, 
with rockv front and lono;- indented shore 
lines — cape, isthmus, promontory, and penin- 
sula. 

Over all this sea of white grimly stands 
the solemn Roan, its craggy ridges running, 
dark and rugged, down into the misty ocean 
like long, narrow cajjes. Presently will 
arise one mightier than the mountain ruler- 
by-night of the fogs and mists, and they will 
arise at the bidding of the glorious sun, and 
form a fleecy crown of glory about the low- 
ering brow of old Roan. 

The sun comes up unclouded. A flood of 

light bursts over hill and valley, mountain and 

8 



114 THE WAGOIS^AUTS ABROAD. 

plain. The blue western mountain sides 
sink deeper into the shadows; eastward all 
is aglow with rosy light; and now all the 
ocean of mist is astir, slowly lifting, break- 
ing up into fragments, climbing rugged 
heights toward various condensing points, to 
drift gradually up to the summit of the Roan. 
If one could grasp, much less describe, the 
myriad changing effects of light and shadow 
upon this fairy scene of enchantment : colors, 
hues, tints, shades, and names! With his 
boasted gift of speech man has named per- 
haps a hundred — not so many. Here every 
infinitesimal point in the broad landscape of 
thousands of square miles of mountain, hill, 
valley, and plain, with its generally prevail- 
ing hues of greens, blues, yellows, reds, and 
their infinite variety, has each its own pecul- 
iar hue. The same tint is one in one light, 
another in another light; one hue in the 
shade, varying in intensity with the varying 
shadows, until one is bewildered with the in- 
finite variety of shade, tone, light, and color. 
Under the glorious sun's Prospero wand it is 
a very scene of enchantment. 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 115 



The scene shifts. The transition has been 
so rapid that we are astonished when a swift- 
sailing wave of mist from tlie ocean below 
comes flying np, rounding the headland peak 
whereon we stand. In a moment we are in 
the midst of thick darkness, with naught visi- 
ble, save the barren rock at our feet. Changes 
of mist and cloud, shadow and sunlight are 
made by the great scene-shifter w^ith such 
surprising rapidity and startling effects that 
now the cloud by which we were enveiled 
has vanished. Far clouds, or rather mists 
— for clouds lie as high above the mountain 
top as they lie above the valleys below — are 
still climbing the ridges beneath us; the sky 
is almost clear, the long ridges and towering 
peaks of the Roan are again visible; clouds 
float lazily overhead, courting the genial sun- 
light. The curtain that shut out the light 
and the earth has faded like a dream. 

There is something awe-inspiring in these 
thick clouds and rapid transitions. The 
tourist without a guide, or a thorough knowl- 
edge of woodcraft, must wait until he regains 
his senses, or he is likely to come out of such 



116 THE WAGO^AUTS ABROAD. 



veil of mist with everything looking changed, 
weird, and uncanny and to lose his way. 
Many parties have thus been lost. A Supreme 
Judge of Tennessee came out of one of the 
lioan fogs unable to find a single precedent 
for his guidance, and had to be looked up by 
a lawyer like any ordinary litigant. A pair 
of lovers spent a night and two days wander- 
ing about the slopes of the Roan, and then 
failed to return thanks for being found. It 
has never been satisfactorily determined 
whether they Avere befogged before or during 
the mist-fall in which, presumably, they lost 
their way. Since they were wedded soon 
after, it made no great difference. The happy 
swain is said to have returned thanks to the 
fog-spectre of the Roan for a prompt consent, 
following a long waiting, Avhich had promised 
to be longer. 

Sometimes on a clear day, one may see a 
cloud gathered in the lowlands, whence one 
knows not. There is a brief lighting' up of 
the gathered mass, with sharp lightning- 
flashes, a distant rumbling of thunder, and 
the cloud grows darker, bright above and an- 



THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 117 



gry purple upon its shadowed edges. Kain 
descends and we may mark the dark, wet 
streak upon the ground as the cloud passes 
and fades away, leaving the rain area glisten- 
ing and smiling in renewed sunlight. 

Sometimes one may see a dozen local rains 
in a day or even a dozen local rains going on 
at once in the wide expanse of view from the 
Blue Kidge to the far distant Cumberland 
Mountains. It is surprising how small is the 
area of such rain, when to one enveloped in 
the cloud of such rain storm the whole heav- 
ens appear dark. 

^ow a thin mist veils one-half of Lion 
Bluff, so that its grim rocks and dark firs 
show weirdly in the sunlit mist, like some en- 
chanting, dissolving view, while the other 
half stands the more darkly and boldly out- 
lined in the full light. Lion Bluff is so called 
from a more than fancied resemblance to a 
lion coucliant, as the law hath it, with body 
well defined and shaggy head clearly out- 
lined in a bold headland of rugged rocks, 
flanked by a rocky ridge, covered with dark 
spruces. 













-^x^^"* ^-^\ 













-<|\ 

& 







D 
Z 

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(118) 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 119 



Here is also to be seen a piece of natural 
statuary grander than any artist ever cut 
from marble. A bold granite feminine head, 
with Egyptian headdress and cast of feature, 
projects from the side of a great bluff, with 
low, massive forehead, well defined, express- 
ive nose, heavy brow, well curving lips — a 
figure as grand and gloomy as the Sphinx 
and somewhat resembling it in outline. It is 
a strong, solemn, reflective face, with vast 
eyes fixed on futurity in deep, solemn re- 
pose, as if meditating upon profound ques- 
tions, involving the beginning and the end, 
the woes and the sorrows of Titans, l^o 
fancy is needed to make out the features, 
and the profile grows sharper and clearer 
the nigher one approaches and with each 
successive visit. 

Alas! if one had the brilliant descriptive 
powers of a Ruskin, Avith his wordy and glit- 
tering wealth of adjective and mixed meta- 
phor, jumbled like mixed pickles in a bottle 
and as cold, lifeless, icy, and often as beauti- 
ful as a polar iceberg, with George Eliot's 
divine power of giving life and breath, thought 



120 THE WAGOIsTAUTS ABROAD. 



and motion and moral qualities to whatever 
she toucheSj one might describe the Roan. 

The Wagonauts grew restless. The lioan 
is snakeless as Iceland. The demijohn of 
snake medicine fell to zero. As the Jason 
of the expedition, I suggested that we keep 
the holy Sabbath by a solemn walk down to 
Roan Station. If I said six miles, I didn't 
mean to mislead. Brutns is sternly opposed 
to walking. He is so opposed to leg action 
that I would expect difficulty in securing 
his acceptance of a legacy. It was necessary 
to convince him that Roan Station was only 
six miles distant, of which three could be cut 
off by bridle paths. I cannot tell a lie, and 
Panier undertook to convince him. At 10 
o'clock of a peaceful Sunday, Ave bade good- 
bye to Cloudland, up anchor for home, down 
the steep descent, taking the by-paths through 
the moist recesses of the thick forests which 
clothe mountain sides, that are destined at no 
distant day to be covered with smiling mead- 
ows and fields and flock-bearing pasture 
lands, to the very summit. With all day 
before us and the last quart that could be 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 121 



squeezed out of the demijohn, we ran on slow 
schedule, making frequent halts at cool gush- 
ing springs in fairy haunts and sylvan glens, 
Avhere deep shadows and moss-grown rocks 
invited to repose. 

Getting involved in a tripartite discussion 
of the universal order and the " eternal fitness 
of things," the usual thing happened. We 
forgot the particular and lost our run of the 
concrete in our absorption in the general and 
the abstract, and lost our way. Observation 
of ridges and valleys and Jason's knowledge 
of woodcraft soon set us right. With an ad- 
journment, sine die, of all questions concern- 
ing the general order of tlie universe, we 
reached the great tramway and our road six 
miles above Roan Station. 

At the first house, except a small cabin, 
high up the mountain side, I proposed butter- 
milk. An aifected fear of dogs, but a real 
desire to put the best foot foremost, led Brutus 
and Panier to elect me to explore. To my 
astonishment a well-dressed, elegant, and 
handsome young woman came to the door 
and gave me permission to call in my friends. 



122 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



I had seen a little girl swinging, most un- 
mountainlike, in a hammock in the back 
porch; bnt I had snpposed that she was some 
tourist's .child. Soon a foaming pitcher of 
fresh buttermilk, a roll of yellow butter, and 
(here in the mountains) a loaf of Graham 
bread lay upon the table before us. " Isn't 
there something before eating?" asked Bru- 
tus who seldom neglects anything. '^ Grace?" 
I asked, innocently. '' Well yes — something 
of that kind — libations — drink offerings to 
the ophidian powers for safety from snakes," 
returned Brutus. "Ah, yes, I'd forgot," I 
replied, and, turning to the young lady, said: 
"My friends like sugar in their buttermilk." 
I will take my book oath that she came back 
with real cube sugar, three glasses and spoons 
and a jug — that's English, you know — of cold 
water. "They never drink water in their 
buttermilk," I said, when she'd safely de- 
posited the ingredients. " I^o, but you'll 
need it," she answered, and discreetly retired, 
while I pulled out the last of the demijohn 
and brewed three toddies that Jove might 
have sipped with the ambrosia at an Olympian 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 123 



banquet; and then we proceeded to precipi- 
tate ourselves violently on the outside of 
three gallons of buttermilk and a whole loaf 
of Graham bread. 

When our luncheon came to an end, the 
young lady came to invite us to rest upon 
the shady back porch. Brutus and Panier, 
who never recognize a good thing when they 
see it, began to say that w^e must move on 
to Eoan Station. I thanked her and asked 
her to sit with us and tell us something of the 
mountains. We were joined by her mother, 
a refined, well-preserved woman of no ex- 
travagant number of years. The mother, 
two daughters, and a little girl lived here 
alone, coming from Bakers ville, IS[. C. They 
saw little company except tourists, and were 
clearly cultivated, educated people, and one 
of the daughters, we learned was a contrib- 
utor to some Eastern magazine. 

I soon observed Brutus growing restless 
under my allusion to his wife. I knew that 
his impressible heart was off again. I knew 
that he would find some indirect way to as- 
sault me and tax the Jason of the Wago- 



124 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



nautic expedition with iinkindness in allud- 
ing to his wife, without mentioning the exact 
ground of his anger. 

We'd scarcely got behind the laurel that 
lined the broken tramway when he burst out 
with : "I've been lied to — egregiously lied to." 

" I suppose you want me to lie about your 
wife." 

"I was speaking of the lie about that six 
miles, when it's twelve to Roan Station. As 
for that stale joke about a wife, I've had 
enough of that, too." 1 offered to go back 
and swear that Brutus walks in maiden med- 
itation, fancy free. 

When we'd made a half mile, Brutus 
turned and gazed at the cosy cabin, called 
for the canteen, sat down upon a log, and 
wrote and read as he wrote, bringing forth 
the following tribute to his latest flame and 
a sad farewell to Emma Jean : 

Ode to Truth. 

The canteen? yes; the cup too, please! 

(O keg!) 
Yes, truth yon side the Pyrenees — 

(Canteen!) 



THE WAGOKAUTS ABROAD. 125 



Ye gods ! look there ! the pair o' knees 

I've got wi' sliding, scrambling ; 

O'er granite rocks! this mountain rambling! 

(O keg!) 
O had we Alcibiades!* 
And his little team of atomies ! 

(Canteen!) 
This walking's not a Christian grace ! — 

(O keg!) 
It's only fit for grovelling race, 

(Canteen!) 
As for this rambling, metamorphic! 

(O keg!) 
I'll try and be as philosophic 
'S I can. You say it's pleasure, fun! — 

(O keg!) 
I'll sum it up, when the journey's done — 
"Summit up!" — "Always some 'at up?" — 

(O keg!) 
Come, Panier, I would rather sup, 
Short-spooned, wi^ the devil, than that punster 
Should play 'pun me what you call fun, sir — 

(Canteen ! ) 
Where was I ? On the Pyrenees ! 

(O keg!) 
And then these trousers — pair o' knees, 
Abraded, torn, unpatched, contused, 

* One of the many names given our driver. 



126 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



Somehow got my wits confused — 
Some sort of tangled brain disease- 

( Canteen!) 
Aye, truth yon side the Pyrenees 
Is error on the other side — 
So thin, lines true from false divide! 

(O keg!) 
I think 'twas said by Gallic Paschal, 
Or other mediaeval rascal. 

(O keg!) 
I'll prove, in metres amphibrachian^ 
It's just as true o' th' Appalachian 
System, they call the Alleghany — 
As lovely mountain range as any 
Boasting Gaul or Swiss can brag on — 
Mountain that we've driv'n our drag on. 

(O keg!) 
On t'other side the Unicoi, 
I roved a lithesome-hearted boy, 

(O keg!) 
Till, meeting bonnie Emma Jean, 

(Canteen ! ) 
I melted 'neath her love-lit e'en, 

(Canteen ! ) 
If ever love in heart was true, 

(O keg!) 
True love did my soft heart imbue, 

( Canteen ! ) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 127 



My soul was fierce aflame wi' true-love — 
As true as ever rhymed wi' coo-dove — 
As true as ever from above, 
The constant heart of man did move. 

(O keg!) 
And yet I'd scarce the mountain crossed, 

( Canteen !) 
My soul wi' passion wildly tossed, 
When yon sweet maid in yonder cabin — 
Cosy enow to lodge Queen Mab in — 
A-nesting sweetly in ivy bowers, 
Where purple-clustered laurel flowers. 
Lean down to kiss the murm'ring waves, 
Of brook that o'er rough ledges raves. 
Resounding hollow through cool cave. 
Where lowly summer blossoms lave 
Their petals in the crystal brook, 
And coy trout woo the angler's hook — 

(O keg!) 
Bless me! again I'm sadly lost, 

( Canteen ! ) 
'Pon brooklet wavelet tempest tossed — 

(Okeg!) 
Ah yes! I'd just the mountain crossed — 
Dividing line twixt false and true — 
Twixt cloud-false skies and love's true-blue — 

( Canteen ! ) 
When truth I found to error turned — 
The love that in my heart had burned, 

(O keg!) 



128 THE WAGO:NrAUTS ABROAD. 



Was false, a lie, a mere delusion^ 
A jumbled, hazy, wild confusion, 
A self-deceit, a mere dissembling, 
As I stood by yon maiden, trembling 
With true-love, this side Unicoi, 
A love-lorn man, no longer boy. 

(O keg!) 
O, then, I saw the truth v^ith ease. 
That truth yon side the Pyrenees — 

(O keg!) 
(Yes, Panier! thanks! a bit o' cheese — 

(Okeg!) 
And let me have the corkscrew, please) — 

(Canteen ! ) 
To error rank had been transmuted, — • 
A truth that can't now be disputed! — 
And universal is the law: 
It's just as true o' th' Unicoi — 
As gospel-true o' th' Appalachian — 

(Canteen!) 
(These rhymes will split thy tubes eustachian ?) 
And just as true o' th' Alleghany, 
Kaatskills, Sierras, Youghiogheny. 

(O keg!) 
We change the sky and keep the mind. 
But leave what's in the soul behind. 

( Canteen ! ) 
Farewell, my winsome Emma Jean, 

(Canteen I) 



THE WAGO]S^AUTS ABROAD. 129 



Farewell, fore'er, tliy love-lit e'en, 

( Canteen ! ) 
Ah, maiden o' the log-locked cabin! — 
Just big enough to hide Queen Mab in! — 
I'm now, forever, only thine! 
Be thou, O be, forever mine. 

(Okeg!) (E.L.Brutus.) 

Then the solemn cortege sadly moved on, 
and slowly wonnd. its devious way down the 
valley, leading Brutns, and guiding his halt- 
ing steps, as he continually turned to gaze 
backward towards his true-love this side the 
Unicoi. '^ Six miles yet," sighed Brutus, 
" and not a drop left." 

Our way now lay through a wild, broken 
country by the side of a clear winding stream. 
Sometimes we traveled the road, but oftener 
the bi-oken tramway. At one point, where 
we were on the opposite side from the road, 
with a dense laurel screen shutting out the 
view, we prepared for a cool plunge into an 
icy stream. How were we to know that a 
neighborhood path ran just inside the fence? 
How were we to know or conceive that rus- 
tic swains and maidens were going to dese- 
9 



130 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



crate the holy Sabbath by coming along that 
path upon a Snnclay berrying expedition? 
While sitting on the fence beneath the shade 
of a wide-spreading birch, waiting to cool off, 
a covey of dreadful sunbonnets loomed up in 
full view. " Hold on there, girls," I shouted, 
plunging into the pool head-foremost, like a 
muskrat. Two jolly nrchins came up, hold- 
ing their sides with laughter, and T told them 
to tell the party that we would seek modest 
hiding whilst they went by. ''We hain't a 
carinV' said one of the boys. ''I know you 
don't care, you little imp, but we do," I said, 
" and the girls do." Just then a young 
mountaineer came by, and we came to terms. 
The tittering procession went solemnly by, 
with sunbonnets all set indiscreetly sidewise, 
and they had scarcely got by when Brutus 
launched himself into the pool like a bull frog, 

exclaiming as he went: " D 'f I can stand 

those thorns any longer." 

As we walked lazil}^ down the last mile, 
Panier thought it best to cross the creek to 
the road. Poising himself with his umbrella 
under his arm, upon the smooth top of a great 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 131 



"biscuit rock," he leaped for the top of 
another. His foot slipped, and he sat down in 
the water, with the huge white rock between 
his legs and the umbrella under his arm and 
back contemptuously upstream. " Why 
don't you hoist your umbrella," cried Brutus, 
as we rolled convulsed upon the ground. 

^ext morning our party of Wagonauts 
came down for a plunge in the creek before a 
delicious breakfast at Roan Station hotel. 
While we were out enjoying the clear waters 
of Doe River, a waiter came to the proprietor 
with : " Boss, dem gemmen whar come in las' 
night done skip de house." 

"Why, George," said the proprietor; 
"they looked like gentlemen." 

"Cyarnt alius tell, boss; I knowed dey 
wuz sompin wrong ez soon as I ketched de 
eye o' dat'n wid de black mustacher an' 
looked at de cut o' dat little un wid de light 
hyar an' mustacher. I lay dey done over- 
puswaded dat big fat man dey called Mr. 
Ramp. He looked like a plum gemman." 

" They didn't take their baggage, did they, 
George? " 



132 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



'^ Dat cley didn't; dat bargage hain't got 
nuffin in't nohow 'cept three empty quart 
bottles; I seed em a strainin' dem larst 
night." 

A rail journey of two hours through the 
canyon of the Doe, as wild and as rugged as 
any on the Kocky Mountains, brought us to 
Johnson City and the end of the first wagon- 
autic expedition. 

Note. — The suspicion that our party had 
skipped the house is literally true, except 
that Brutus was the excepted party and de- 
scribed as a " plum gemman." 



PART SECOND. 

IN THE MOUNTAIN WILDS OF SOUTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

H. M. DoAK, Clerk U. S. Circuit Court - A. T. Ramp, 

G.H.Baskette, 'Editor Nashville Banner - Gid H. Panier. 

Dr. R. L. C. White, K. G. S., K. P. - Dr. R. Elsie Blanc. 

(133) 




(J8ij 



THE WAGONRUTS ABROAD. 



CHAPTEK I. 



Infandum regina, Jubes renovare dolorem. 
TNOXVILLE, 12 M. Three Wagonauts, 
\ escaped from the dog-days' heat of IN'ash- 
ville, dash gaily down Gay, the main street 
of picturesque Knoxville, toward the long 
bridge across the Holston. What changes! 
In these streets I have seen — and borne my 
humble part — revolution and counter-revolu- 
tion; witnessed here riot, there murder. 
Yonder I saw the Union desperado, Douglas, 
wounded by the Confederate desperado, 
"Wash Morgan, and a few days after I saw 
Douglas shot— assassinated — by a shot from 
the Lamar House windows. I have drilled 
squads, companies, and battalions along these 
streets and over yonder hills and hep-hepped 
over all these hereabouts. On this Gay 

Street, in 1865, myself disguised in the latest 

(135) 



136 THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 



New York fasliioiij and just from Appomat- 
tox, I saw seven or more returned Confeder- 
ates brutally knocked down and beaten by 
Federal soldiers. I spent the afternoon in 
pious retirement and took the earliest train 
for change of air and scene. Knoxville has 
changed and yet it retains its individuality, 
social worth, and the ancient stamp of its 
founders. 

On receipt of information concerning the 
abundance and venomous character of cop- 
perheads in the portion of JN^orth Carolina we 
were about to visit, the AVagonants provided 
two kegs of antidote and a canteen as provis- 
ion against such breakage as left us exposed 
to rattlesnakes in our last journey. 

As we bowl along Gay Street our company 
consists of R. Elsie Blanc, ruddy blonde, au- 
ricomous, fourteen stone weight; G. II. 
Panier, blonde, shadlike — late shad — -angu- 
lar, nine stone; and A. T. Ramp. Our driver 
is a decided brunette, rejoicing in the Italian 
name of Lorenzo, known to us, in rainy sea- 
sons as Jupiter Pluvius, in drought as Pom- 
ery Sec. As to our team, both bays, but 



THE WAaOI!«^AUTS ABllOAD. 137 



Frank alone entitled to the bay, Jim's chief 
use was to iill a place at the off- wheel as a 
sort of balance wheel. Panier lugubriously 
remarked, as we hung up on the side of a 
mountain, that the only mistake made was in 
failing to provide a seat in the w^agon for 
Jim. 

Business men display varying tastes in 
their summer diversions. One seeks to 
change the sky without losing the comforts 
and luxuries of civilization. For him there 
are no delightful sharp contrasts, no delicious 
lights and shades, no sweet, enjoyable alter- 
nations of the rough and smooth of life: and 
he W' ants none of these. Our theory of diver- 
sion is complete change from all the condi- 
tions of daily life. Hence we sought for this 
summer the wild solitudes of the remote and 
almost inaccessible mountains of south-west- 
ern ]N"orth Carolina. To endure the storm, 
to let the rain pour on, to climb alpine 
heights, to thread tangled laurel thickets, to 
wade cool mountain streams and cast the 
hungry trout line, to sleep on the ground, in 
deserted cabins, in wayside churches and 



138 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



schoolhouses, to say to the elements, " blow 
ye winds and crack your cheeks; we tax not 
ye elements with unkindness; pour on, we 
can endure;" to relish rough fare with os- 
trich appetites, was our aim in going to this 
region, where the aboriginal Cherokee is yet 
found upon his autochtlional ground and 
where are found the highest peaks this side 
of the Sierras. 

The outfit of such party is a matter of com- 
missary and quartermaster wisdom. We had 
a strong carriage, with three seats, capable 
of being completely closed up, a pair of 
horses, bucket, axe, hatchet, monkey wrench, 
and extra horseshoes. Our edibles consist- 
ed of canned corned beef, canvased beef, 
and breakfast bacon, a baked ham, butter, 
biscuits, sardines, caviare, cofiee, lemons, 
olives, with ample cooking utensils, table 
ware, pipes and smoking tobacco, l^o ci- 
gars. Two mysterious kegs containing some- 
thing ruddy and sunlit, which seemed greatly 
to comfort Panier and Blanc, continually re- 
plenished a half-gallon canteen. I have never 
been able to ascertain what those kegs con- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 139 



tained, but I think it was about three gallons 
apiece. A double bUmket each and a rubber 
blanket completed our outfit. Thus provided, 
we made two hundred and fifty miles with 
comparative comfort and delicious hard- 
ships. 

Our way led us over the road by which 
JSTola Chuckee Jack (John Sevier) was wont 
to lead his backwoods knights to the defense 
of the young settlement of what is now Se- 
vier County, to launch them like a thunder- 
bolt upon the Erati Cherokees. As we drew 
near to Sevierville, the foothills of the tall 
Alleghanies lifted their low, steep barriers, 
vine-covered, " rock-ribbed and ancient as 
the sun." To the right and left and before 
us opened the broad valley of the two Pig- 
eons, Big and Little, and their branches and 
tributaries. IN^ight drew on, with songs of 
cicada, whippoorwill, toad, tree-frog and 
bull-frog, the gleam of firefly, and meteor 
flash of lightning bugs in meadow and field, 
and along alder-fringed and willow-lined 
streams, and in dark valleys. The gloomy 
way is enlivened with song and jest. Panier 



14D THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



and Blanc talk far better than they sing. 
For diversion I was forced to sing myself; 
but then I can sing — a fact that even Jim 
recognized. This exasperating animal lay 
down in a swamp and signified his unwilling- 
ness to endure further toil for any prospect 
of oats, wild or tame. Panier and Blanc 
exhibited their mean envy by remarking that 
such singing would unhorse any animal. I 
alighted and wa'lked, singing a caviare from 
Trovatore. Panier says it's cavatinct'^ but 
Panier is a purist; for 'twas "caviare to the 
general." Jim arose from his muddy couch 
and followed me, entranced, as the wild 
beasts follow^ed Orpheus. Great is the 
power of music. 

At last Jim consented to reach the ford at 
Sevierville. Here was a go. ]^either our 
Ferguson, nor any one of us, knew the ford. 
We assailed a neighbor house with shrill 
" house-ahoy ! " without avail. Assuming the 
superior knowledge of a man who's once 
been there, I took the reins and plunged in 
boldly, no matter how coldl}^ the rough river 
ran. Fording a mountain river, with its 



THE AYAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 141 



swift currents, rongh rapids, and deep holes, 
and the night as dark as Erebus, is no child's 
play. When we reached the further bank, I 
found Blanc and Panier each seated astride 
a keg. We reached Sevierville at 10 o'clock, 
finding the tavern chock-a-block with Meth- 
odist preachers attending Conference. Blanc 
and I, in reply to the white-stoled landlady, 
declared we could put up with lodgings and 
sup at breakfast. Panier's insatiable maw 
arose in instant rebellion and asked for pie 
— said he could manage to wear out the night 
with pie. That man will eat anything. It 
was well that Panier prevailed and we had 
supper; for we lost that night, wrestling 
with the voracious cimex lectularius, 
armed and with lance in rest, by actual 
weight, two pounds of good red blood 
apiece. 

Pale, worn, and weary, we staggered in to 
breakfast, where we found that uncounted 
flocks of chickens had assembled on the ta- 
ble, anxious to be eaten by the Methodist 
Conference. Our Methodist brethren looked 
with pious suspicion upon our canteen and 



142 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



kegs; but we disarmed suspicion by explain- 
ing that we were going as palefaced mis- 
sionaries to the Cherokee Reservation. 

Leaving Sevierville and taking our way 
up the north fork of Little Pigeon, our road 
led us diagonally across the spurs, ridges, 
and foothills of the AUeghanies. The 
streams now began to change from the dirty, 
milky blue of limestone regions into the 
clear brown of sandstone hills and then into 
the bright yellow, clear, sunny waters of the 
matamorphic rock country. As we climb 
up and up, bright waters flash forth from 
deep coverts, and brooks babble sweetly and 
noisily down from gloomy heights above; 
ever more and more embowered in thick-set 
laurel and ivy, which here replace the willows 
and alders of the low^er lands. Crossing 
ridges, climbing hills, going straight up 
gorges and valleys, we enter Cocke County, 
aiming across foot ridges, to reach our only 
practical route by Mt. Sterling Gap, or 
" Starling," as they call it here. Crossing 
thus, from the waters of the Little Pigeon to 
the beautiful valley of the Cosby, cheered 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 143 



by Panier's recitation of a beautiful original 
poem, which nothing but his modesty has 
kept out of print, we begin to beseech the 
obdurate natives for corn. 

The story of our further wanderings is i-e- 
served for the next chapter, wherein is also 
something of our camp and of the natives 
and what they thought of the kegs. 



CHAPTER II. 



We are such stuff as dreams are made of, 
And our little lives are rounded with a sleep. 

AS we drove down to Cosby Creek an in- 
viting house chilled onr ardor for out- 
doors. Dusk was drawing on and a ravishing 
odor of frying ham filled the valley. A na- 
tive was chopping wood at a wood pile. 

" Stranger, is this Cosby? " 

"I reckon hit ar," replied the woodchop- 
per, cutting us off with a surly tone, without 
looking up or knocking off work. Surliness 
to strangers is something unusual in the 
mountains. 

^^Any corn in this neighborhood?" 

"Dunno; corn's powerful scyace." 

"Could we stay all night?" 

"Dunno; you-uns mout go up the creek 



an' see." 



"Drive on," said Blanc; "you axed him a 
(144) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 145 



civil question and he gave you a sharp an- 
swer and went on axing the wood pile." 

" His axions spoke louder than his w^ords," 
said Panier. This sort of execrable punning 
is what I have to endure. I never wittingly 
indulge in that sort of wit. 

Crossing Cosby ^ we drove up a large clear 
stream, winding along the center of a fertile, 
well-cultivated valley, ^o corn was to be 
had at any of the many houses along the 
way. At a country store a number of natives 
gave us good advice. AVe could camp at a 
church a mile up the river. Corn could be 
had, always three or four miles off the road. 
At last a ^^ mountain boomer," who lived 
nigh where we expected to camp, would sell 
us oats, but no corn. When the case of Jim 
and Frank seemed desperate, a man who'd 
just bought a half bushel of shelled corn con- 
sented to exchange it for forty cents' worth 
of the contents of the keg — a transaction in 
which the United States had an interest, 
which it has lost by the running of the stat- 
ute of limitations. 

In a few minutes we had a rousing fire 
10 



146 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



crackling and lighting up a grove of fine 
hemlocks, which surrounded the church; and 
Ceres was sent to buy oats. 

" No wonder dat man hain't gwyne to sell 
no corn; he's got eight chillin, an he gwyne 
to need dat corn." This is a prolific region. 

The unfortunate man was about thirty. 
Early marriages, wholesome air and water, a 
reckless disregard for consequences, and ig- 
norance of Malthus make from eight to a 
dozen children the rule of households here- 
about. Panier enviously remarked that they 
seemed to raise 'em by coveys. Thus it comes 
about that these mountain regions have fur- 
nished more people to the great West than 
any other hive of human beings, New Eng- 
land not excepted. 

A combined church and schoolhouse occu- 
pies the centre of a grassy grove on the banks 
of the Cosby. The stars are out; the katy- 
dids fill woodlands and mountain sides with 
sweet music; toad-frog and tree-frog make 
the valley vocal with wild melody, and all of 
nature's night voices make a sublime Wag- 
nerian symphony. The smoke of our camp 



THE WAGO]^^AUTS ABROAD. 147 



fire spreads itself amongst dark spruce boughs 
in spectre forms; the bright fire lights up 
black pine branches, casts weird shadows 
upon dai'k masses of foliage and flares with 
flickering light down long ghostly vistas, 
deep into the thick wood, lighting up dark 
trunks, down the long corridors of our sylvan 
halls. The neighbor creek bubbles and roars 
a few yards away as it bounds along upon its 
long journey from the crests of the Allegha- 
nies to the Gulf of Mexico. 

The steaming pot is bubbling and singing 
gleefully, purring with self-satisfaction as it 
brews that genuine gift of the gods, black 
coflee, which, by and by, Panier and Blanc 
will spoil with sugar and add insult to spoli- 
ation by lacing it with good liquor, thus 
spoiling two good things. Broad slices of 
canvased beef broil and sputter on the coals. 
Three forked spits, cut from neighbor boughs, 
hold slices of fragrant breakfast bacon — 
" streak and streak" — to the fire, browning 
and broiling, dripping upon toasted bread. 
By and by will be spread here a feast for the 
gods. Already such sweet incense ascends 



148 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



amongst spruce and pine boughs and up into 
the empyrean, with such savors of steaming 
coffee, toasting bread, and broiling meats, 
that old Jove on high Olympus disdains his 
lean fare of nectar and ambrosia, and envi- 
ously begins to thunder in the west. 

" The canteen? " " Ah, Panier, it was you 
who first thought of the canteen at lunch," 
said Blanc. A light nip fresh from that mys- 
terious keg would not harm an infant before 
supper. Blanc has had the canteen cooling 
in the creek, not unmindful himself of grog 
hour. Two to one; well I don't wish to be 
drenched, and I accept the inevitable. " Hold 
on there, ' Pete,' " cried Blanc as I made a 
close inspection of " Job's Coffin " over the 
fat, laughing side of the smiling canteen. 

Now comes the coffee-cooling process. 
There's nothing so hot as a tin cup; but 
there's an appetizing delay and a lingering 
delight in pitching the dark cherry fluid from 
one tin cup to another after the fashion of 
Canova's Hebe, as she is represented pitch- 
ing the matutinal cocktail for the gods on 
Olympus. We linger lovingly about the out- 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 149 



spread feast, as the gods at Troy snuffed with 
delight the sweet savors of acceptable sacri- 
fice. And now we fall to — 

Then, horn for horn, we stretch an' stryve; 
Deil tak the hin'most on we drive; 
Till a' our weel-swalled kytes, bely ve. 
Are stretched like drums. 

The meal over, old man Panier '' bethankit 
hums" and pipes are filled and we ^^lie like 
gods reclined, careless of mankind," stretched 
upon our blankets before the fire, with knap- 
sacks for pillows, dreamily gazing up into the 
spruce boughs, upon the flickering lights and 
dancing shadows and through narrow open- 
ings into the starry heavens and up to where 
the peaks of the Great Smoky stand grim, 
dark and silent, guarded by a serried line of 
firs and spruces, faintly lit by the white 
beams of the setting moon; and "the place 
became religion." 

Anecdote, retort and jest go round, as 
pipes are refilled and the canteen goes round. 
"Would that I could Boswell Panier's and 
Blanc's ready wit, infinite humor, and light 
philosopy, so genial, bright, and sparkling, 



150 THE WAUONAUTS ABKOAD. 



when first uncorked; so malapropos and 
cold, when gathered and recorded, like all 
gathered and recorded wit, whether of Syd- 
ney Smith, Douglas Jerrold, or Hood, ceas- 
ing to be wit when coldly printed without 
its circumstance and occasion. 

Conversation now took a melancholy turn 
and dropped into a sentimental vein. It is 
the camp. All three had served the Confed- 
eracy from '' Eend to eend." It is the camp 
— a perfect reproduction of the old days. We 
can imagine camp fires to the right, camp 
fires to the left, camp fires in front and rear 
— stacked arms, furled banners, tired men, 
flitting about the blazing fires, preparing the 
soldier's frugal meal, playing cards, smoking, 
reclining, dreaming of home, laughing, jest- 
ing, singing. Back again come crowding 
upon the memory high hopes, divine love for 
a nation newborn, wild, enthusiastic affec- 
tion for a young banner that went down never 
dishonored. As we dreamed and talked in 
broken sentences, what if a silent tear be- 
dewed the ground? God help the poor spirit 
upon either side of our great and both-sides- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 151 



honoring struggle who can ever forget the 
sentiments proper to his own side and part! 
He is no true American, be he South or IN'orth 
man. 

Alas! it fades; it is not real; but a faint 
simulacrum. The magician, memory, has 
called up an Alhambra view of a Boabdil 
court, a scene of enchantment, a mere mock- 
ery, to taunt the steadfast soul and its sweet 
memories of hopes, fears, and comradeship. 

Our man of the oats and of corn un spar- 
able and the quiver full of little arrows, came 
over to pay us a visit — a genuine mountain 
boomer — a name taken from a little black 
mountain squirrel, which I have not heard of 
lately. Our visitor has never been ten miles 
away from his own spring branch. He is 
overwhelmed with awe at the sight of Panier's 
breech-loading shotgun. His father was a 
Federal soldier; but no armed force ever en- 
tered this quiet valley. His mouth and eyes 
opened w^ide when Panier told him that we 
came from ll^ashville, three hundred miles 
away. I expected him to exclaim, as the old 
lady did when Daniel Webster told her he 



152 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



was from Boston, one hundred miles distant: 
"Law! stranger, how kin you live so fur 
off?" The canteen was passed and barely 
touched. "Drink hearty, stranger, we've 
plenty." 

"JSTo, Fm bleeged,-' said he, "I hain't had 
a drink fur nigh on to two year. I jest 
drink fur neighborness. I'm a settin' up late; 
but I'd lose a night jest to hyar you-uns 
talk." 

One of the AVagonauts grew poetical and 
recited an ode to night. Observing the ef- 
fect upon our visitor, he ventured into trag- 
edy in w^ild, ranting style. It was better than 
any play to see the " boomer," with his head 
leaned back against the trunk of a tree, his 
eyes bleared wide, his mouth stretched from 
ear to ear, and his hands clasped in mute ad- 
miration. "When the farewell of Othello to 
war came to an end, he drew a long breath, 
and after a moment's silence exclaimed, 
"You-uns kin speak, shore; I hain't never 
hyerd nothin' like that; " and he hadn't. 

Our visitor departed; sleep began to close 
tired eyelids and the mind began to w^ander 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 153 



off among the lights and shadows, to climb 
ascending smoke wreaths, to nod with spec- 
tral shadows and weird forms under the over- 
arching sprnce bonghs and to replace the 
waking realities with the unreal of half 
asleep. 

Sonorus began to snore in the wagon; and 
the fire burned low. Signs of all Jove to 
come rushing down before morning warned 
us to make down our beds of fragrant spruce 
boughs and fern within the church. Stretched 
luxuriously upon this sweetest smelling and 
most sleep-provoking of couches, I soon 
heard Panier wrestling in his dreams with 
vagrant "chiggers" caught on the mountain 
sides, and Blanc's snore musically " dirl roof 
and rafter," like the devil's fiddling in " Tam 
O'Shanter." I lay awake and gazed out at 
the majestical roof of boughs, swaying in the 
rising breeze, at the fading stars and gather- 
ing clouds and listened to the deep roar of 
the mountain stream, the sweet voices of in- 
sects, the shrill pantherlike cry of the night- 
hawk, the plaintive note of the whippoorwill, 
the low, solemn, melancholy soughing of the 



154 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



wind as it went sighing and wailing through 
the pines, like a lost spirit, until I fell into 
unbroken, dreamless sleep. 

At dawn we shook off downy sleep and 
after this poetical operation, prosily called 
Aurora to turn out, feed his team, and make 
ready for the road. A plunge into a clear, 
cold pool and a moment's lying in the foam- 
ing waves of a boiling cascade dissipated all 
lingering drowsiness and stiffness from un- 
wonted exercise, and whetted appetites to a 
fine edge. Breakfast w^as soon smoking, and 
I must here say that there's magic in Panier's 
touch of the coffee pot. The brown berry of 
the gods parts with its subtlest aromas under 
his deft touch. I am sorry to qualify this 
statement by a story of mutiny. As Jason 
of the Wagonauts and flag officer of this 
squadron I have established six bells — 11 
o'clock — as early enough for any Christian's 
grog — and the grog hour the world over. 
Panier came up with a cup containing sugar 
and water, and boldly demanded the canteen, 
making pretense of neuralgia and of really 
needing a drop. I sternly told him that if 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 155 



he was ill the surgeon of the expedition 
would settle with him out of the medicine 
chest, with his choice of a purge, an emetic, 
or a blister; but no grog upon any hypocriti- 
cal pretence. I ought to say that I have been 
compelled to withdraw custody of the kegs 
from the surgeon and entrust them only to 
myself. Blanc here interposed with a bald 
statement about a touch of rheumatism, ri- 
diculously limping up with a cup containing 
sugar, very little water and a sprig of what 
he called mint. " l^ot a drop," I said, "not 
a drop until six bells. Besides, if my 
botany's not at fault, that's not mint, but 
a plant of the solanum family, and possibly 
deadly poison." Blanc's narrow escape cast 
a o-loom over the crew, and I was able to 
quell this rising mutiny. My botanical 
knowledge, which has been the subject of 
scurvy jests with Panier and Blanc, is now 
upon a better footing; so that I have been 
able, with fair credence, to call unknown 
plants by any big name that came handy. 

As we were about starting, and Orestes 
had already assumed the reins, our visiting 



156 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



native came over to see us off. Declining 
grog and breakfast, he said he'd only come 
to "howdy, ez he'd never seed sich gentle- 
men afore." 

" How far to Hopkins, on Big Creek? " was 
asked him. 

" I jist dnnno," he replied. " I jist dunno " 
seems to be a universal expression of blank 
ignorance about here. 

Our direct route to the Cherokee country 
would have been by Catlettsburg, but that is 
impassable. It is our aim to-day to reach 
the foot of Big Smoky, across the ridges and 
spurs, which stretch northwardly from the 
main range. Vegetation has ah^eady per- 
ceptibly changed its character. Some plants 
have dropped out altogether, as we have grad- 
ually left the flora of the valleys for the plant 
life of the highlands. Late as it is, the chest- 
nut trees are laden with white feathery blos- 
soms, long ago shed in the valleys below us. 
Strange mutations! Blanc and Panier are 
just now in full autumnal chestnut fruitage, 
and I'm the victim of their spiny burrs and 
bitter nuts. The glades and hillsides are 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 157 

covered with tulip trees, which we miscall 
poplar, rarely the cottonwoocl, which is a 
true poplar, but seldom seeu at this height, 
the red birch, the graceful pale-truuked 
white birch, linns, ash, wild cherry, cucum- 
ber magnolias, whose red fruit is said to be 
a substitute for rennet in cheese-making. 
Familiar lowland growths are sometimes rep- 
resented by similar but unfamiliar varieties. 
The familiar bull-nettle grows with a longer 
stem, and a white liower has taken the place 
of our blue blossom. Along with our modest 
flowering nightshade is seen the bell-shaped 
flower of the deadly nightshade, the bella- 
donna plant of the atropia family. The large 
palmetto fern of lower levels is mingled with 
many beautiful varieties, suited to this lati- 
tude or altitude, which is the same thing. 
The deadly crow plant grows here and there, 
a grasslike tuft. The fatal hemlock— locally 
so-called, although it is neither conia nor 
cicuta — with its luxuriant vinelike growth, 
mats every moist valley, dell, and glade. The 
conium, called in English hemlock, is sup- 
posed to be the plant which introduced Soc- 



158 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



rates to his daemons in the realms of Pluto. 
The lowly mountain tea, with its birchlike 
flavor, grows upon every hillside. The bear- 
berry, with a lovely flower resembling the 
Cherokee rose or the eglantine, grows with 
tropical luxuriance in low places, bearing a 
berry very like the Antwerp raspberry, its 
fruit a pleasant acid, its semi-vine stalk, hairy, 
low, and many branched, its leaf broad and 
grape-leaflike — a plant that should be culti- 
vated for its flower if not for its fruit. 

Before reaching the State line, which is er- 
roni'ously located on the maps, we came to a 
mill and toll-gate upon an imaginary turn- 
pike. I hope the meal of the old Giant 
Despair who keeps it justifies toll-taking — 
his turnpike doesn't. We declined to pay 
toll upon a '^ no thoroughfare; " and the sight 
of Panier's breach-loader induced him to ofter 
as free transportation. 

Panier and I, assisted by Demagogus and 
the whip, had great difficulty in keeping 
Blanc from making a speech at the State line. 
The Governor of North Carolina was here 
referred to and, in some way, the Governor 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 159 



of South Carolina was lugged in — how I never 
could tell. I think that Panier said it was a 
long time between Governors. To save time 
Blanc and I agreed to this absurd proposi- 
tion, which leads me to reserve a further ac- 
count of our journeyings and of the maiden 
of Big Creek until my next chapter. 



CHAPTEK III. 



Jura from her misty shroud, 

Answers joyous Alps that call to her aloud. 

(Byron.) 

IN the last chapter I left Panier, Blanc, and 
myself at the State line, involved in some 
enigmatical matter concerning the Governors 
of J^orth and South Carolina. Through the 
friendly mediation of Bacchus, who dropped 
the reins and passed the canteen, this was 
satisfactorily settled. 

We have now passed over the interesting 
geological series between Knoxville and the 
Great Smoky— over limestone, shale, slate, 
micaceous slates — over " grey knobs " and 
" red knobs " — not at all attractively " knob- 
by " to tourists with a balky horse. We've 
passed through, not over, the Chilliowie range, 
leaving the two ends of its sandstone ridges 
to the right and left of us as we approached 
Sevierville. We're now on what Dr. Safford, 

the State Geologist of Tennessee, calls the 
(160) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 161 



Ocooe series, composed of conglomerates, 
sandstones, slates, and shales bordering on 
the metamorphic rocks. 

Tennessee, it may be remarked in passing, 
while now a niggard in scientific research, 
owes its present rapid growth in wealth to 
the scientific forethought of its earlier men. 
In Dr. Troost, a naturalist, botanist, and 
natural historian of world-wide fame, and in 
his worthy successor. Dr. Safibrd, it stands 
foremost for the value, rather more than the 
amount of scientific work. As a result, when 
knowledge of its resources was most needed, 
just after the war between the States, the 
records made by Troost and Safford laid the 
State bare to the bottom. Would-be investors 
could see to the center of the earth, from the 
crests of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi^ — 
flora, fauna, and mineral wealth. Full of 
just pride to take scientific rank, our ances- 
tors meant science; the result has been wealth ; 
and yet the poor, dull, practical fool can never 
be made to see that the theoretical and the 
abstract outvalue in mere almighty dollars all 

jhis stupid practical ashes of sense. 
11 



162 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Our way goes, with iips and downs, till 
now we are skirting the foot of the Great 
Smoky range along Big Creek. As we passed 
a vine-covered cottage this morning, just after 
four fingers of inspiration out of the canteen, 
Blanc said: '^Panier, I know why the frugal 
Frenchman, with his dread of owing anybody 
anything, drinks wine instead of water." 

^'Why?" asked Panier, unsuspiciously. 

^'Because he'd eau for water." 

An awful silence fell upon the Wagonauts. 
After consnlting the canteen and brooding 
for a time in solemn silence, Panier retorted: 
" The pun's as thin as the fluid." 

" O, you're not acqua-ainted with the fluid 
last mentioned," replied the unconquerable 
Blanc. 

" Wat-er dreadful mental condition you're 
in," replied Panier. 

" Udor'n't understand it," came back Blanc, 
resorting to the Greek for water; '^I can 
make a wasser one than that if I try." This 
is the sort of thing I've to endure as best I 
may. Blanc is now engaged on his life work, 
'^A Plan for the Improvement of the Punning 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 163 



Capacities of the English Language, with an 
Introduction by Max Miiller." 

At last, wet inside and out, tired, soggy, 
muddy, looking like a draggled game cock of 
a rainy evening, we came to Big Creek bridge 
and Hopkin's farm at the foot of Great 
Smoky and five miles from the summit of 
Mount Sterling Gap. 

^'Let 'em have the corn; we can buy it 
back," said a kind-faced woman. I'm sure 
she was looking at me; Blanc thinks she was 
gazing at him; Panier is sure that a glance at 
his shad-like form aroused her sympathies, 
and his quixotic appearance perhaps justified 
the belief. After lanch it rained as it only 
rains in these mountains. As Virgil justly 
says, '^All Jove came down." We found dry 
spots in the leaky cabin, which the proprie- 
tor doesn't mend as respects the roof, because 
he's going to move some time or other; and, 
because, like the house of the Arkansas 
Traveler, it doesn't leak when it's dry, and 
he can't work on it when it's raining. 

After lunch Mrs. Hopkins, the mother of 
our hostess, came in in a melting mood — a 



16J: THE AYAG^OXAUTS ABROAD. 



woman of sixty-live, with coal black hair, 
form erect, and straight as an arrow; face 
still g'oocl-looking' and step as springy as at 
eighteen, with a trace of lingering widow 
coquetry, a deal of good sense, and such dry 
humor as I observed once in Mrs. Clemens, 
the good old mother of " Mark Twain." Her 
husband had been killed as a Union man dur- 
ing the bitterness of civil war in East Ten- 
nessee, but she showed no trace of bitterness 
when told that we had been on the other side. 
On the contrary, she displayed a hospitable 
womanly interest. Asking my name — as the 
best-looking of the Wagonauts — she said; 
"Any kin to Dr. Doak, the Presbj^terian 
teacher and preacher? I reckon everybody 
in East Tennessee knows them. All the 'ris- 
tocrats was Presbyterians. There was the 
Brazzletons and the Inmans. I lived in Jef- 
ferson Count V before we moved here. Them 
Inmans was good folks and the boys was 
good boys." She was surprised to hear that 
John H. Inman was a New York millionaire. 
Blanc vows that I said "Yes, we were all 
Presbyterians," when the old lady said that 



THE WAaON^AUTS ABROAD. 165 



all the Presbyterians were aristocrats; but I 
didn't. 

John H. In man is worthy a word in passing 
— a man for Tennessee and the South to be 
not only proud of, but grateful to. Born at 
Dandridge, East Tennessee, he left a bank 
clerkship at the beginning of the war, to en- 
list as a private in a Confederate regiment, 
whence, through his superior business talents, 
he was promoted in a few wrecks to be or- 
derly sergeant, the business man of the com- 
pany — indeed, of the regiment. He served 
faithfully in the ranks, a mark for every bul- 
let, until his business and organizing capacity 
called for his services in the quarter-master's 
department, where he spent the last two 
years of the war, surrendering in ISTorth Car- 
olina a division quarter-master. Certainly a 
rapid rise for a youth of seventeen! 

Returning to his home in East Tennessee, 
he found fortune swept away, fields ravaged, 
houses burned, negroes gone, and a spirit of 
hatred and jealousy, which makes life unen- 
durable. Indeed, life was not possible, ex- 
cept to one too weak, or unknown, to attract 



166 THE WAGOKAUTS ABKOAB. 



attention. Like thousands of the best intel- 
lect and energy of East Tennessee, he went 
driven from his home by that insane spirit 
which enriched communities north, south, 
east, and west, with the intellect and enter- 
prise of men who have made leading citizens 
everywhere, and left East Tennessee to lan- 
guish to this day, as France suftered from the 
exile of the Huguenots, and Germany from 
the banishment of the Palatinates. East Ten- 
nessee is naturally the most favored of lands, 
but it is only just beginning to recover from 
the injustice which gave Georgia so many cit- 
izens and scattered so many fjir and wide to be 
foremost in the great Southern strides forward. 
Mr. In man went to J^ew York, friendless 
and penniless, and toiled for three years as 
clerk in a cotton house, becomiug a partner 
at the end of that time. In 1888 the house 
of Inman & Swan was the absolute ruler of 
the American cotton market, with a wide- 
spread and powerful influence upon the mar- 
kets of the world. In 1888 he besfan to turn 
his attention to railroading, and afterwards 
became President of the Kichmond and Dan- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 167 



ville Railroad Company. Perhaps no man in 
America lias an equal intellectual grasp of 
the railroad situation of the South. lie has 
made no mistakes. 

Devoted to the South and its people, he has 
done more than any one man to help on that 
material development which has advanced the 
South beyond its former glory and wealth and 
given it a glimpse of power, glory, and riches, 
of which the world has had no example — a 
progress due, and due almost entirely, to its 
own sons and to their grasp of its possibilities. 
Like many another East Tennessean, such as 
Lowrie in commerce, and Campbell Wallace 
in railroading, he has found his chief, al- 
though not entire field, in Georgia and the 
Virginia and l^orth Carolina sea-board. 
Such a Southern worker, too, is John W. 
Thomas, the able President of the N., C, 
and St. L. Railway. Although only about 
forty, he has made a fortune which is esti- 
mated at $5,000,000. 

His services to his native land and, broader 
than that, to all of his country are enhanced 
by the fact that he not only can cherish hon- 



168 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



orable memories of determined and gallant 
service in the great, honorable, and unparal- 
leled struggle of the South, and equally pa- 
triotic services to the South in the restoration 
of its wasted resources; but he is besides, 
what is worth more than all, a genial, kind, 
charitable, and affable Christian gentleman, a 
consistent member of the Presbyterian 
Church, and every Avay worthy of the honor 
paid to him IN^orth and South. 

By this time the mother had slipped into 
her daughter's best dry gown and sat swing- 
ing her feet, quite jauntily for sixty-five. By 
way of recompense for our intrusion, the can- 
teen was passed. The daughter tossed off 
about five fingers, remarking: '' 'Tain't often 
I see any whisky; but I like it. I think its 
healthy." A drink that would have appalled 
any of our party didn't seem to affect her in 
the slightest. The old lady looked slily at 
her daughter : " Jinny got copperhead bit and 
like to a died five year ago, an' I don't 
b'lieve she'll ever git over likin' a drop o' 
liquor for that old snake bite." The old 
lady surrounded no inconsiderable dram her- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 169 



self by way of preparation for future snake 
bites. 

A pretty mountain maiden of about six- 
teen now came in, carrying a two-bushel bag 
of corn, followed by a big, lazy lout of a 
brother, cari-ying his own carcass and looking 
rather overburdened with that. The girl was 
a model for a sculptor in limb and torso. 

Begging permission to occupy the stable 
for the night, our hostess said we could 
stay in the back room, which she assured 
us didn't leak much. With one chair, the 
bed, and a keg, we were soon comfortably 
installed. 

These people are capitalists for this coun- 
try. The wife seemed to be the head of the 
house and the owner of things generally. 
They had sold off a stock of goods, some cat- 
tle and land, and were awaiting collections 
before removing to the Eed Banks of ]N^ola 
Chuckee, Unicoi County. Our hostess was 
a kind, good woman, into whose sound mind 
had come gleams of a higher civilization than 
she enjoyed. Barefooted, with gown at half 
leg, she was magnificently formed, bust and 



170 THE WAGO]S^AUTS ABROAD. 



limb, and carried herself, head erect, with 
unconscious pride. She had been beautiful 
before child-bearing; hard work and the loss 
of an older child had written hard lines in her 
face. She was still handsome, especially 
when talking. In repose her mouth dropped 
into harsh angles. Sensible, easy, and fluent, 
using good English, with a quiet, occasional 
flash of humor and appreciation of our ob- 
scurest puns, she was evidently superior to 
her lazy husband. 

It was as good as a comedy to see a little 
girl of nine or ten, when she came in from 
school, gaze for the first time upon a real 
African. Aristarchus blushed as she scanned 
his coal black features with childish awe. 
^^IIow did the missionary get so black?" she 
asked. Her mother explained that the only 
negro ever seen in this cove in her day came 
preaching through the country as a Mission- 
ary Baptist and preached at an old school- 
house. He was an object of curiosity and 
was finally ridden on a rail and given notice 
to quit. Since that time traditions of a black 
missionary have lingered in the valley. The 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 171 

little girl inquired again: "What does the 
missionary cut his hair so short for?" 

Strange as this may appear, it is simple 
fact. The mountaineer prejudice against the 
nef>'ro is insurmountable; hence the African 
rarely ventures into these valleys, though he 
is in no danger as a servant and is treated as an 
equal so long as he avoids trying to live here. 

During the afternoon Blanc strolled, gum- 
coated, down the road. A half hour after a 
native with a red petticoat about his shoulders, 
called for me to say that a gentleman at the 
bridge wanted to see me about a " deer drive." 
"Gracious; in this rain? What has got 
into Blanc?" Donning a gum coat, I went 
with him to the bridge; and there I witnessed 
a sight for all nine of the Muses: Blanc, sit- 
ting upon the low parapet of the bridge, in 
the drizzling rain, notebook in hand, writing 
an ode to Big Creek. 

"What did you come for? I sent that 
idiot off to get rid of him. Clear out and 
don't interrupt me. This is the finest thing 
I ever saw." 

The scene was well worthy of the praise 



172 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



bestowed. The broad, clear Big Creek came 
dashing down, with many a fall and cascade 
and many a long, deep reach or clear pool, 
literally ont of the clonds. A quarter of a 
mile above, the low white mist lay upon the 
snrftice of the water, contrasting with, as it 
partly rose and mingled with, the dark spruce 
boughs. The river seemed to burst, like an 
escaped prisoner, out of its covert of cloud 
and dark green. On it comes, yonder leap- 
ing ten feet down into a deep pool, yonder 
cascading over great granite blocks foi* a 
stretch of fifty yards, then down over a hun- 
dred feet of smooth stone, and then with a 
sweep under the low bridge. Below the 
bridge it swept majestically around a curve 
between meadows and cornfield, to be lost 
downstream in the mists again. Add to this 
scene, genius at work in the very throes of 
parturition, in a gum coat, with Faber 'No, 2 
and a notebook. I left him in labor over a 
bi-syllabic synonym to rhyme with 'M'iver." 
I suofo'ested " shiver," and hastened back to 
the fire. 

Half an hour later Blanc came straggling 



THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 173 



in, a most bedi-aggled and forlorn-looking 
spectacle. lie said that he had not suc- 
ceeded as well with his poem as he had wished ; 
that it was not up to his usual standard; 
" but/' he added with charactei'istic modesty, 
'' it's better poetry than either of you can 
write." As proof of his assertion, he made 
profert of several rain-spattered pages from a 
notebook, whereupon was inscribed his effu- 
sion. For the benefit of posterity it is here 
transcribed under the title given it by the 

author : 

A Pluvial Dithyramb. 

Like Goldsmith's lone and lonely traveller, 
" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," 

Far from the madding crowd's annoying stir, 
While rolls the restless river far below, 

I sit upon this damp old bridge and think 

How very much I'd like to have a drink! 

Not from the river — such a draught, indeed, 
Were far too frigid for my cold condition; 

Saint Paul himself did not extend, we read. 
To stomach-medicine his prohibition — 

And so vouchsafe, O Ceres, from thy bounty, 

A generous quantum suf. of Lincoln county! * 

* The name of a favorite brand of Tennessee whisky. 



174 THE AVAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



So near and yet so far! the blue smoke curls 

Above the humble cabin where, anon, 
Heedless of me, my friends — the caitiff churls!— 

AVill pull the corncob from the demijohn, 
And, as they guzzle there in godless glee, 
Will leave the world to dryness and to me ! 

Dryness within — 'tis wet enough without: 
Much like the ''Ancient Mariner," I think, 

I find there's water, water all about, 
And not a drop of anything to drink; 

Great wind-blown sheets of rain fill all the sky, 

The stream is full — eheu! so am not I! 

And here I sit, Marius-like, amid 

The ruins of this Carthaginian bridge. 

Wooing the Muse, who still keeps coyly hid 
Among the pines and other trees indig- 

Enous to her fuliginous retreat — 

I hope Marius had a drier seat! 

The air is full of sound: the cataract's roar. 

The sullen sough of wind through dripping trees; 

And o'er it all I hear distinct, once more, 
The raucous voice of Alcibiades * 

The old, familiar query skyward toss, 

Asking : "Am I a soljer ov de cross? " 

I came to write a poem for the maid 

Whose large and generous welcome was so sweet — 

* One of the very classical names given our colored driver. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 175 



A grateful sonnet, erewliile to be laid 

In homage at lier large and generous feet, 
Magenta-stockinged- -but the hope is vain: 
How can a man write verses in the rain? 

Here goes once more: O beauteous mountain maid! 

dryad, naiad, nymph, rolled into one, 
Sporting like "Amaryllis in the shade," 

Or glancing 'twixt the sunshine and the sun, 
In gay, glad, giddy, girlsome glee — alack! 
There goes a large, cold raindrop down my back! 

"Dryad," said I? Nay, anything but them! 

1 call to mind the Carolina sages 
Whose luminous, omniscient apothegm 

"Will gild with glory all the coming ages, 
And make without disguise the frank admission: 
I really could not stand a dry-ad-dition! 

Is life worth living longer? There, below. 
The river rages, all athirst for blood; 

Dare I, despite its cruel-gleaming flow. 
Leap, Cassius-like, into this angry flood. 

And be "a dem'd, damp, moist, unpleasant body?" 

Not now — I think I'll go and try to find a toddy! 

Describing the scene to Panier, onr hostess 
said: "Is he a poet, a real poet?" We as- 
sured lier that be was a great poet. He mod- 
estly declined to read his verses to her; but 
we detected him giving her a revised copy 



176 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



substantially like that given above. Panier 
gave her four pretty lines which cost him two 
hours' labor, inscribed to her little daughter. 
I saw myself fading into obscurity. " Mad- 
am," I said, '^ these gentlemen have to cudgel 
their dull brains as if they were oxen only to 
drag out a few lines of poor verse. I'll go 
back home if I can't talk better poetry than 
they can write. Here goes to your beautiful 

Big Creek : 

Big Creek arose 

From her couch of snows 
111 the far blue Al'ghauy Mountains ; 
From cload and from crag, 
With many a jag " — 

" Hold on there," shouted the mean, envi- 
ous Panier and Blanc in disgraceful chorus, 
"you played that game the time you had that 
^jag' over on the Roan." 

Without noticing the mean interruption, I 

proceeded : 

And gliding and springing, 

Big Creek went singing, 

In murmurs as soft as sleep. 

The earth seemed to love her. 
And heaven smiled above her. 

As she lingered toward the deep. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 177 



Our fair hostess clapped her hands with 
delight: "Jih, I know that's real poetry; I 
never heard anything like that." Panier and 
Blanc meanly charged me with stealing those 
beantiful lines; bnt the charge fell flat, and I 
shall linger in the traditions of this valley as 
the genuine poet of Big Creek. 

We turned sharply np the mountain side; 
and, after a mile of winding, our last night's 
resting place lay almost straight down be- 
neath us. In this pure atmosphere walking 
scarcely tires the toiler; but one would like 
the option of riding when one has hired a 
team. It was as much as Sysyphus, the 
driver, and Frank could do to pull Jim and 
the wagon. Soon it grew misty and no rain- 
fall was needed to saturate our garments, 
^ow and then the mists were all swept aside 
by some magical zephyr, disclosing beauti- 
ful views of height on height, peak on peak 
above and lovely valleys below^, glistening 
with raindrops in the moment's sunlight. 
Floating clouds lie spread out like fleeces of 
enchanted wool, or lazily climb the mountain 

sides, or, deep down in the valleys, long 
12 



178 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 



white lines of mist mark out the winding 
ways of devious creeks, or fill whole valleys 
with fairy lakes, dark in the shadows, and 
brightly gleamiug in the chance sunlight. 

Here, at a turn in the road, a lovely cloud 
view opens up to the left and rear. A dozen 
distant lofty peaks and lower mountains stand 
amphitheatre-like, dim grey-blue in the thin 
clouds, like ghosts of departed mountains re- 
visiting the scene of former sentinel duty. 
The upper clouds drift away, the mists grow 
white and clear, the blue deepens upon moun- 
tain sides and summits, the wind rapidly scat- 
ters the mist in Avhirling sprays, curling up- 
ward and away, until the unveiled blue of 
mountains looks into the azure vault above. 
In the distance between hii>*h iieaks are seen 
the far-off Chilhowies, with their low sand- 
stone-girt sides and pine-crowned sharp 
ridges. A half mile on and all is dark again ; 
the rain comes down in torrents and Jupiter 
Pluvius drags closer his rubber blanket. 

We are now in the region of the metamor- 
phic rocks, which, for the most part, lie in 
IS^orth Carolina. The veaetation has become 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAl). 179 



alpine and we are rapidly approaching the 
climate and liora of Canada. Animal life 
there is al moist none. 'No hum or chirp of 
humble bee, honey bee, dragon fly, or cricket 
enlivens the way. Save now and then the 
scream of the eagle, the cawing of a crow, or 
the croak of a raven, no sound is ever heard 
upon these remote summits. 

All human sounds have been left far below, 
the hush is burdensome, and the soughing of 
the wind but makes the silence oppressively 
audible. In this awful stillness we welcome 
the voice of the glorious thunder, ^'leaping 
the live crags among," reechoing from peak 
to peak and crag to crag, shaking the very 
granite foundations beneath us. In the 
midst of the gloom of Erebus we are glad- 
dened by the fierce lightning, flashing lurid 
and zigzag, sharply piercing the pale mists 
with lambent tongues of fire, weaving plex- 
ures of flame through and through black 
thunder clouds, broadly inspiring and light- 
ing up the whole vast enveloping cloud mass 
around us. 

At last we draw nii>Ii to Mount Sterlins* 



180 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Gap, on the divide, at the summit of the great 
Appahichiaii chain. The valleys and moun- 
tains of Tennessee lie behind us. AYe are 
about to enter a new-old country, inhabited 
by a similar, but not by the same, people, 
dwelling upon a geological foundation of an 
older series, with a different flora. The peo- 
ple of the slopes behind us were mostly Union 
people, now Republicans, lietaining most 
of their primitive characteristics, they have 
been a little more in contact with the world 
than their Carolina brethren over the great 
divide. The forms of speech difier slightly. 
In the main, the same people without close 
connections with one another have developed 
subtle differences easier to note than to de- 
scribe or define. 

The Carolina people here were mostly 
Southern and are now generally Democrats. 
This difference, however, was due to political 
conditions. Beyond this there are surface, 
not radical, diflerences such as peoples de- 
velop when dwelling apart, each secluded 
from the great w^orld and that association 
which makes the cultivated classes in all civ- 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 181 



ilized countries so much of one type that it is 
hard to assign the nationality of photographic 
selections from the educated classes of dif- 
ferent nations. 

The reader may expect a treatise on dia- 
lect. Much of my boyhood was spent hunt- 
ing, fishing, and frolicking with these people. 
I have since visited the mountain regions of 
North Carolina and Tennessee a great deal, 
observing closely the manners, customs, and 
speech of the people. I can easily trace such 
2)eculiarities of speech as I have observed to 
the days of Chaucer, Sir Thomas More, and 
Mandeville, but I have heard no dialect. 
Romance writers have not been able to resist 
the temptation to surprise their readers with 
most uncolloquia^l dialect, which lies chiefly 
in their own grotesque spelling. Such dia- 
lect is as easily read by a cultivated student 
as a page of the Hamlet quarto of 1603, or the 
folio of 1623, with their variegated spelling 
and antique letters. AYe have here simply 
the language of tradition, without the growth 
of written speech. These people have had 
their antique language handed down to them 



182 THE WAGOXAUTS AliliOAD. 



from father to son. Hence it has responded 
slowly to the changes going on amongst the 
lettered classes. It is still plain English 
speech, as easily nnderstood when spoken as 
the talk of the Harvard gradnate. I have 
known a dialect monger to pnt into the month 
of a mountain cliaracter the Yankee " heft" 
for '^ weight," or ''guess" for "reckon;" 
when it may be assumed that the man who 
nses either ''heft" or "guess" was either in 
the Federal army or of the household of one 
who was. 

But here's Mount Sterling Gap, and a 
good-natured looking fellow waiting astride 
the fence, of whom we would ask some ques- 
tions about our road; so that the further 
jom*neyings of the Wagonauts are reserved 
for the next chapter — after we've tapped the 
canteen. So " here's to you unt your vam'- 
lies; unt may they live long unt prosper." 



CHAPTER IV. 



"Ef I lived ill a grouii' liog hole, I'd fight for it." 

(A Patriot.) 

J~niIE rain and fog shut off the fine views 
_ from Mount Sterling, so that the reader 
is spared any description of them. Upon the 
high peaks above the gap we could catch 
glimpses of spruces and firs. These conifers 
belong to the latitude of Canada, and are 
found here at altitudes of 5,000 and 6,000 
feet respectively. The fir yields balsam in 
what are called "balsam blisters" on the 
trunk. But for these " blisters " the inexpe- 
rienced eye could scarcely tell the fir from 
the spruce. In grasshopper season these 
summits are frequented by the pheasant and 
wild turkey; but generally they are left to 
the eagle and the raven. The soil is fertile, 
but too cold to produce anything valuable 
except grasses and the hellebore. The con- 
tinual condensation supplies numerous cold 

(183) 



184 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



springs and provides a trout stream for every 
little vale. 

The region we are about to enter, and that 
to the west and south of us, is the wildest, 
most interesting, and least visited of all the 
mountainous country east of the Mississippi. 
One or two peaks of the Black in the Blue 
Ridge, two hundred miles east and north, 
are perhaps higher than any hereabout; but 
for number of high peaks, vastness of moun- 
tain masses, wildness and grandeur this re- 
gion excels. 

In the beauty of its streams, such as the 
Big and Little Pigeon, the Little Tennessee, 
the Cataloochee, theTuskeseegee, the Ocona- 
Luftee, and the Socoah and Jonathan's Creek, 
it far surpasses any region I have ever vis- 
ited. In cultivated lands, broad valleys, and 
level reaches it is surpassed by the valleys 
of the IN'ola Chnckee, but the pasturage hei-e 
is the finest I have ever seen. The owners 
of these wild lands may fence them, pay 
taxes, and "range " their own cattle thereon, 
but any citizen may graze lands un fenced, 
rent free. The mineral and timber resources 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 185 



are first rate and both comparatively iiii- 
touchecl. Iron, silver, gold, lead, graphite, 
granite, and many other minerals are fonnd in 
workable quantities; and mineral and timber 
agents and capitalists seeking investments 
are beginning to '^prospect/' 

Wet and dripping from a passing shower, 
the Wagonants waited in " Starling Gap " 
while Aqnarins and Frank hauled Jim up 
the steep slope. Getting in and lighting our 
pipes, we hailed the man on the fence — the 
only native we've met who was on the fence 
— the natives are generally very positive. 
He was a good man — a man to tie to— he'd 
been to get a basket of apples for his mother- 
in-law. Panier took advantage of the " gap," 
separating him from his domestic establish- 
ment to indulge in profane jests upon the 
mother-in-law, which I have severely sup- 
pressed, although he has since furnished them 
to me carefully written out, but meanly cred- 
ited to Blanc, whom I'm not going to get 
into trouble. 

The three miles down the mountain to 
Lizard Spring were soon made, and here we 



18G THE WAGONAUTS ABUOAD. 



halted for lunelieon and respects to the can- 
teen. Making another ascent, we descended 
into the valley of the Cataloochee and stopped 
for the night at Fayette Palmer's. The Cat- 
aloochee is a noted and a beautifnl tront 
stream. This Dolly Varden, dainty minnow, 
as Blanc scornfnlly calls him, seeks the ])nre 
cold waters of the higher streams after the 
month of June, where the water is overarched 
with spruce, pine, and laurel and kept cold, 
where huckleberries come dancing down the 
waves and the flies are sweet and cool. It 
was too late for fly Ashing, and we had in 
native parlance to '^sink for 'em." We'd 
soon a fine string apiece, and Pisces Avas set 
to cleaning the catch while I donned my 
white apron and got out the olive oil. Mind- 
ful of my last experience of mountain cook- 
ing of trout, I entrusted myself with the cu- 
linary operations. 

The pompano stands next to the trout in 
delicacy of flavor and firmness of flesh; but 
the speckled trout, born in the clouds, nur- 
tured in the mists — '^children of the mist" — 
whose home is in the coldest and purest 



THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 187 



brooks, whose dainty food is the finest berries 
and the delicatest flies and moths, is the 
finest of all the fish. The epicure scorns 
sauce with its dainty pink flesh, melting like 
butter in the mouth. 

Bhuic, who came out "loaded for bar," 
came in not entirely gameless, and perhaps 
saved two valuable lives by shooting a gen- 
uine copperhead. This serpent abounds in 
these valleys. AVhile not so venomous as the 
rattlesnake, it makes up for venom in vigor 
of attack and the certainty of its aim. I 
have known many people bitten by both rep- 
tiles, but I have never known death to result 
from the bite of either. With two kegs of 
snake antidote, we felt snake-proof. Weary 
with clambering over rocks, and drowsy 
from the eftects of our drenching, we tapped 
the canteen, smoked one i)ipe of ravishing to- 
bacco, and were lulled to sleep by the mus- 
ical murmurings of the bright Cataloochee. 
By morning Panier and I were off*— up the 
slopes of the Great Smoky, with bait and rods, 
eager for a great catch; but the heavy rains 
had so swollen the Cataloochee that our pros- 



188 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



pect of sport had faded. We could not wait 
for the uncertain clearing of the river, and 
Ferguson was ordered to take the road. 

Upon a high clearing on the divide be- 
tween Cataloochee and Jonathan's Creek we 
met a divinely ugly native, with a strong but 
pleasant face, a keen eye, eyebrows like a 
moustache, and a genuine moustache spi'out- 
ing upon the end of his huge red nose. 

" You-uns from South Calliner? " he hailed, 
as we drove up. 

"l!^ashville, Tennessee." 

"Min'ralser timber?" he asked. 

Every party of tourists is subjected to rig- 
id scrutiny, and suspected of being prospect- 
ors for minerals or timber, or United States 
officers ferreting out moonshiners. I have 
deemed it unnecessary to mention my con- 
nection with the government; for, while I 
would scorn to use information gathered 
while on a pleasure tour, it might prove dan- 
gerous to be suspected. The natives are as 
jealous of mine and timber hunters as of 
those who interfere with their right to make 
their own fire-water. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 189 

''They alius carries fishing tackle," he 
said, when we showed him our sporting out- 
fit. He didn't believe a word we said. " The 
' revenues ' alius does that," he said. At last 
he said he'd like to show us some " speci- 
ments " he'd gathered. They were fine spec- 
imens of iron pyrites, which we assured him 
might have a future value. 

The mountain man is always between the 
horns of a dreadful dilemma, fearing that 
some prospector may ^'bag" a good thing 
" onbeknowns " to the native; or that he may 
himself fail to " bag " a good thing by neg- 
lecting to nse deftly the superior knowledge 
of the prospecting outsider. 

Crossing the clearing, we stopped to enjoy 
the fine views. The sun Avas shining bright- 
ly; the few floating clouds hung high in the 
heavens, and a dark rain cloud clinging to 
the highest peaks of the Great Smoky in our 
rtuir rather enhanced than marred the pros- 
pect. To our left rear lay the lofty peak of 
Mount Sterling. In the west, mountain mass 
lay piled upon mountain mass, above which 
towered Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa, serene in the 



190 THE WAGOXxVUTS ABROAD. 



clear sunlight, and heavily timbered down 
into the basin at its foot. 

On the other side the view lies almost ap- 
palling in its grandeur of infinite distances, 
monntain masses, broad basins, long, trough- 
like valleys, farms and fields, high up on 
mountain slopes, as far as the eye can reach, 
to the dim, misty crests of far ranges in 
Georgia and South Carolina. At our feet 
lies the pretty vale of Jonathan's Creek, dot- 
ted with farmhouses and checkered with field 
and woodland, with here and there the curl- 
ing smoke of human habitations, up to the 
thick forests upon the slopes and summits of 
Socoah, up which the eye wanders to the 
Gap, through which our road will carry us 
to-morrow, into the Indian country. 

Southward Waynesville nestles in a broad 
plain, surrounded by its amphitheatrical 
mountain ranges. Further aroinid to the 
east yawn the canyons of the French Broad, 
lying darksome in the shadoAVS of Paint 
Mountain, near Warm Springs. In the f\ir 
distance to the southeast towers Pisgah 
Peak, one of the tallest of the Appalachian 



THE WAaOlN^AUTS ABROAD. 191 



system. East, a little southerly, stand the 
great mountains about Asheville. This is 
the furthest, \\i Iciest, and every way finest 
mountain view we have had. 

While we were gazing, our native gave ns 
necessary information. Something brought 
up the war. "Were you in it?" I said. 

" Stranger, I were," he replied, with a hurt 
expression. 

If he looked hurt by an implied doubt as 
to whether he'd been to the l)ig wars that 
make ambition virtue, his expression was 
both hurt and wrathful when I asked him 
which side he was on. 

" Ef I lived in a groun' hog hole, I'd fight 
fur it," he replied. 

"Where did you serve?" asked Blanc. 

" I were with Ransom, in ole Virginny," 
he answered, with modest pride. 

" Then you saw some fighting. Get 
hurt?" asked Blanc. 

" Half this hand," he said, holding up a 
maimed hand. "I were thar nigh to the 
eend — in the hospital at Petersburg. I were 
shot purty nigh the last, an' bar'ly git out 



192 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



afore the Yankee line lapped round our boys 
ez we got out'n Petersburg." 

His picturesque and finely expressed ^' Ef 
I lived in a groun' hog hole, I'd fight for it" 
told the whole duty of a man to the people 
he lives with and to the country he lives in. 
" Let's take a bumper to Ransom and the tar- 
heels," said Panier, drawing out the canteen. 
^^ Stranger, I reckon you know this kind of 
bottle?" 

The veteran's eye gleamed. " Got one like 
'er down home," said he. " Got one of 'em 
at Big Bethel, and carried her clean through 
— re^'ular Yankee cantlet. A Yankee bul- 
let 2*ive her a cut at the Wilderness, an' a 
piece o' shell dinted her some at Petersburg, 
when Ave fit at the ^ crater; ' but I've got her 
heryit." 

He poured out a modest six fingers, gazed 
afar, as if memory were lit up Avith battle 
heights, flaming crests of Avell-charged hills 
and cherished recollections of camp, field, and 
comrade; and then, Avith a start and a long 
breath, he said: '^Well, here's to you-uns 
aud yourn. AYe done nothin' to be ashamed 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 193 



of. We han't done nothin' after all; but 
we worried 'em. I han't got nothin' agin 
nobody; I han't got nothin' to take back, 

nuther." 

The Confederacy had no better troops than 
these same "Tar-heels," who walked on their 
toes to the front and stuck their tarred heels 
into the ground on their retreat. I^othing 
was more enjoyed than our meeting with this 
simple-minded veteran, whose strong face 
and rude but eloquent talk showed plain 
sense and magnanimity. 

AYith a hearty shake of the hand at parting, 
we turned down the slope towai'd Jonathan's 
Creek. At a store and a mill by the way we 
found about thirty natives assembled to hear 
a trial for assault and battery. The defend- 
ant had escaped, and Hamlet Avas being 
X)layed in Hamlet's absence. A native un- 
fortunately let it out that a meeting of Con- 
federate veterans was to be held on the heels 
of the trial, and we had much trouble getting 
Blanc to forego this opportunity to make a 
speech. Blanc is utterly lacking in sports- 
manlike pride. He disgraced us here by 
13 



194 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



buying from an urchin a fine string of trout, 
caught in Jonathan's Creek. 

Where the sign board read, " Waynesville, 
5 miles," we turned up the creek, and came 
to a new white churcli and schoolhouse. It 
is a good traveling rule to be the more cir- 
cumspect the further you go from home. 
Panier w anted to take possession, but Blanc 
and I went to a neighboring house and asked 
for the key. The old man was obdurate. 
My statement that we were Christian gentle- 
men from ]N^ashville went for naught. I in- 
quired about the denomination of the church, 
determined to work Blanc's pious face for all 
it was worth as a deacon or ruling elder. It 
was a union church of all Christians. I was 
puzzled. ^^What is your persuasion?" I 
asked. 

The old man was a Baptist. 

"Do you think that Christ would have 
turned off a stranger with a horse that w^as 
born tired?" I asked. 

" They hold me responsible," he replied. 

"AVould any of the disciples — even Judas 
— have turned three weary travelers, with a 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABKOAD. 195 



worn-out horse and far from home, out into 
all out-doors, with a storm brewing? denied 
them shelter, and driven them out into the 
cold world? " 

A happy thought struck me. " By the 
way, stranger, do Baptists ever take a little 
for their stomachs' sake and their often in- 
firmities?" 

The pious disciple cast out a chew of to- 
bacco as big as a dumpling, and made a long 
and minute inquiry into the astronomy of the 
waning moon. As the last gurgle died on 
the ear I added: "Do you remember the 
blsesed promise of the Scriptures: ' Inasmuch 
as ye did it unto one of these, ye did it unto 



me." 



" I reckon I'll haf to let you in," said he. 

Our camping at Jonathan's church perhaps 
saved some child's life. Serpentarius was 
removing a plank which lay in the way of 
the wagon, when Bhxnc, with his keen eye 
for snakes, and remarkable capacity for adapt- 
ing it to frequent calls for the canteen, spied 
a copperhead coiled and ready for business, 
and blew him to Orcus. Blanc is largely 



196 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



ahead on snakes, this being his fourth cop- 
perhead, besides five water moccasins. He 
sees more snakes than the rest of tlie Wagon- 
auts, and lience kills more. 

This is a lovely valley, cut centrally by a 
beautiful stream. The fertile soil is well cul- 
tivated and the vale thickly settled and dot- 
ted with neat, comfortable houses — double 
log and frame; and, remote as are these wilds, 
many people of education, thought, and of 
some travel and cultivation, dwell here, and 
would not live elsewhere if the world were 
given them. The fences are good, living is 
cheap, and the people live well — if plenty is 
well. Their cooking is execrable. It would 
make Delmonico weep, and Brillat-Savarin 
commit suicide. 

We have not encountered the mean log 
and mud hovel of many parts of JSToi'th Car- 
olina, with daubed chimney, ash hopper, pig 
pen, three-gourd martin box on a pole, and 
big wash kettle with "battlin' stick," and 
dozens of tow-headed children, and an old 
woman in front dipping snuff. 

Ivupferkopf could scarcely be induced to 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 197 



feed, after the copperhead incident. I cooked 
our disgraceful string of purchased trout, 
Panier made coffee, and Blanc cut and spread 
the spruce boughs and ferns in the church. 
After a delicious supper and a pipeful of B. 
F. Gravely, we turned the sacred edifice into 
a dormitory, and slept soundly to the tuneful 
voices of Jonathan's Creek, except that we 
w^ere once aroused by Blanc's visions of 
snakes and calling for the canteen of anti- 
dote; and once again by Panier's complain- 
ing of jabberwocks in the chimney and of a 
class of schoolgirl fleas engaged incalisthen- 
ic exercises down the small of his back. 

After a delightful plunge in the creek and 
a gorgeous breakfast, we swept and cleaned 
up the church for Sunday school, and set out 
for Socoah Gap and Qualla Reservation. Ot- 
o-no os-te-nau-lee us-ke-baw, ve-ra-ci-us ta- 
le-stori Ram-pe is reserved for the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER V. 



In the afternoon tliey came into a land 
Where it seemed always afternoon. 
All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon, 
And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream 

Along the clitf to fall and i^ause and fall did seem. 

( Tennyson. ) 

(TOCO AH is a high mountain range, with a 
KJ broad low gap, th rough which our road 
runs into sleepy, Rip- Yan- Winkle Qnalla 
Reservation. The road winds b}^ the side of 
Jonathan's Creek, np one of the wildest gorges 
I have ever steered a wheeled conveyance 
through. Sometimes it is a broad, moist, 
cool vale, with slight incline, covered with 
dense forests of all kinds of trees, w^ith trunks 
all moss-covered in that moist air. Again it 
is a deep, rocky gorge, where the road winds 
through dense laurel thickets, beneath whose 
dark shadows the creek roars and foams with 

never a glimpse of the sun even at noonday. 

(198) 



THE WAGOiXAUTS ABKOAD. 199 



The soil is very fertile and vegetation Inxu- 
riant, with fine pasturage. These gorges — 
the haunts of wolves, bears, and wild cats — run 
up to the heights of Socoah, to the eye one 
mass of laurel, hemlock, and ivy, contrasted 
with gi'ay, lichen-covered granites, with alter- 
nately clear-sweeping and white-foaming 
waters, gleaming through the green and the 
gray. 

The road was but one degree removed from 
the impracticable. At one point it required 
work, and I turned myself into a sapper and 
miner; and, for my pains, had my foot rolled 
upon and bruised hj a huge rock. 'No chance 
to ride, pain or no pain. It required the 
united efforts of our party, with Xenophon 
leading the team, to lift Jim and the wagon 
up the steep, rocky way, assisted by a kindly 
mountaineer. At last one steep incline, 
through thickets of impervious laurel, and we 
are in Socoah Gap, on the line of Quail a 
Cherokee Reservation. After a half hour of 
water cure below a cold spring. Dr. Blanc 
applied a moist tobacco leaf to my wounds; 
so that I suffered but little more with it, al- 



200 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



though it was already badly swollen and black 
from extravasated blood. Tobacco applied 
in time is almost a preventive of tetanus 
from rusty iron wounds and curative of all 
bruises. 

Here, upon the edge of Quail a, in Socoah 
Gap, looking down upon the wigwams of the 
red man, and contemplating the land of the 
aborigines, w^e expected to see some wild sav- 
age burst with war whoop and tomahawk out 
of the forest. Instead of that, a well-dressed 
gentleman rode up to the cattle fence, which 
encloses a few acres of pasture in the Gap, 
and saluted in moderate English. His skin 
was red, but otherwise he was quite modern 
and civil. He even rejoiced in a plain ^N^orth 
Carolina title, and Avas known as Col. James 
Hornblower, although generally called for 
short Jim Hornblower. Jim is a well to do 
Cherokee, who lives three miles down the 
Socoah from the Gap. I was moved to inter- 
view Col. Hornblower on the subject of corn 
for our team. At first he had no corn ; then 
he couldn't sell any. 

In 1830, Col. Drowning Bear, a good In- 



THE WAGO:^rAUTS ABROAD. 201 



(liaii, saw that fire water was shipping his 
people off to the hapj^y hunting- grounds. 
He began a temperance movement which 
speedily worked a great reform and cured the 
whole tribe of bibulation. The authentic 
history of JSTorth Carolina says that this re- 
form has continued down to this day. I have 
a great respect for histoi-y. With a scien- 
tific view and certain base notions concern- 
ing corn, I drew out the canteen and care- 
lessly remarked: "Ili-po-no lenee ke-na-pe 
so-to-naus-tee, Col. Hornblower." Whether 
it was the taking military title, the smiling, 
inviting appearance of the canteen, or the 
pleasure of finding a paleface who could 
speak good Cherokee, I don't know. Any 
way Col. eJames Hornblower embraced the 
canteen and looked up at the sun to see what 
time it was, shading his eyes with the can- 
teen. "Six bells, Colonel," I said; "go 
ahead." He went ahead on both engines. 
" O-co-co ex-haustee, Col. Hornblower," I 
said; " Go-to-no-mo-stop." Still he gazed 
at the sun. " Pete— Bob— Jack," I ex- 
claimed, and I set it down in my notebook 



202 THE AVAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



that the reform of Mr. Drowning Bear had 
not histecl down to these modern times, or at 
least had not embraced Col. James Horn- 
blower. 

When the red man seemed to be duly mel- 
lowed, I delicately mentioned the snbject of 
corn in good Cherokee: " So-me maize, In- 
di-an corn, heap selle, big chief Ilornblower." 
" Ugh, ngh, come down right way — big heap 
bushel, seventy-five cents." I thought it 
was fixed, bnt the paleface isn't always, by 
a canteenful, as smart as he thinks himself, 
when he's dealing with the Avily red man. 

The views from Socoah are fine, but inter- 
rupted by timber. The valleys of the Indian 
country lie below us in the earl}^ light — 

With serial softness clad 

And beautiful with morning's purple beams. 

AVhy is it that so few poets have sung the 
beauties of mountain scenery? Is it because 
they are remote from human life, which, after 
all, is the poet's highest theme? Are the 
thoughts that arise, the sentiments that swell 
in the soul, too vast for utterance by souls 
that know best how inadequate is all expres- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 203 



sion? Old ocean has been sung in all her 
moods. Byron has touched the thunder 
storms of Jura in lines as beautiful as the 
storm. In Manfred, in close connection with 
human sentiment and action, he has depicted 
briefly the glories of Alpine scenery. Words- 
worth is almost the only poet who has sung in 
continued strain the mountains and their vary- 
ing moods. lie sings as if they had spoken to 
him and he had understood. They must speak 
some message to all well-attuned souls. 

The Wagon auts are out enjoying a quiet 
tourist life, with jest and song and easy phi- 
losophy and thorough, but not profound, en- 
joy meut of beauty. To drink the draught 
of nature to the depths one must go, as Scott 
says, to view aright fair Melrose, " go alone, 
the while." 

One may stand alone on yonder blue dome, 
or upon the " bald, blear skull" of yonder 
high-placed crag', with no sound save the 
rippling of the trickling rill, as it starts down 
the mountain side on its way to the eternal 
sea, or the wiiisperings of the winds — the 
lenes sussurri — as it speaks to the firs and 



204 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



spruces — spirit sounds, voices of the moun- 
tain — far from the reach of all human sounds 
of kindred men, above all the sounds of 
creatures and things ruled by man — neigh 
of horse, bleat of lambs, low of heifer, crow 
of cock, chirp of familiar bird or insect — and 
feel, like Manfred, face to face, with solemn, 
silent nature; or, like the "Wanderer," in 
the "Excursion," when that dark mountain 
spirit, the man-shunning raven, comes hoarse- 
ly croaking and flapping his black Plutonian 
wings athwart the scene: 

If the solitary nightingale be mute; 
And the soft woodlark here did never cliannt 
Her vespers, nature fails not to provide 
Impulse and utterance. Tlie whispering air 
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights 
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks ; 
The little rills and caverns numberless, 
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes 
With the loud streams; and after, at the hour 
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard. 
Within the circle of their fabric huge. 
One voice — the solitary raven, flying 
Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, 
Unseen, yoerchance above all power of sight — 
An iron knell. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 205 



I confess to a late-grown fondness for a 
sort of free and easy comrade conimnning 
with nature; but there are some ''secret, 
sweet, and precious " delights — some pro- 
found and ravishing' mysteries, which may 
not be shared, which will only impart a fee- 
joy " due to some single soul." But one 
worshipper at a time may be initiated within 
nature's inmost shrines. 

Setting out with the promise of Col. James 
Hornblower to meet us at his wigwam below, 
we began the steep descent of Socoah. 
"Alas, poor Lo," I thought as I gazed upon 
these sterile, thinly clad lands, with grim 
irony bestowed upon these aborigines, for 
services rendered the early settlers, and upon 
the fertile paleface lands upon the other side 
of Socoah Gap, "he gets the worst of every 
bargain." It's always : " I'll take the turkey 
and you take the crow; or you take the crow 
and I'll take the turkey," and "Ugh! pale- 
fiice never say turkey to Injun onct." 

Our road runs steeply down Socoah Creek, 
which has already become a considerable 
stream as it comes down from the upper peaks 



206 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



of the Socoah. A mile and a half down the 
broad stream roars, foaming down a deep, 
rocky canyon, arched with laurels, fringed 
with ivies, and overhung with dark hemlock 
boughs, wet and sparkling with continual 
spray. The gorge is lined with vast broken, 
jagged, craggy cliffs, and the creek makes its 
toilsome way over and among huge granites 
of many tons' weight, piled in wild confusion 
in its channel. 

At a turn in the road we come upon the 
magnificent Socoah Falls. The bold crystal 
stream dashes, with a long sweep, twenty 
feet down a smooth incline, out of a dark 
covert of green boughs into the sunlight, 
falling checkered through sparse overhang- 
ing bonghs, and panses on the brink for the 
first wild leap for liberty, "frenetic to be 
free." Foaming and boiling on the edge of 
a deep chasm. 



Between walls 



Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass, 

it plunges down twenty feet into a bubbling 
cauldron; gathers strength and, a few feet 
farther on, leaps into the abyss below — 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 207 



Through wavering lights and shadows broke, 
EoUing, a slumberous sheet of foam below. 

Thence out of the sunlight and out of its 
swirling basin it glides, sending up thin 
clouds of steamy spray, touched by the slant 
morning sunbeams to all the rainbow hues, 
and goes gliding into the deep shadows of 
dark granites and darker spruce boughs, to 
roll and tumble and fret and fume, over, un- 
der, around, and over great boulders, here and 
there disclosing, through green boughs, rav- 
ishing views of nature's wild magnificence. 

Here, in the Indian country, one may im- 
agine some dusky Alfriata, spirit of some 
blue Juniata, wooed by dusky lover, in unison 
with the swelling notes of this wildly and 
weirdly tuneful waterfall — forest notes, suit- 
ed to nature's wildest mood — where civilized 
lovers would seek purling brooks and softer 
music. 

According to the only tradition I have 
found lingering here, the last battle fought 
by the Cherokees of this region w^as fought 
here in Socoah Gap. Strangely this was a 
conflict between rival Cherokees. Of wars 




(208) 



SOGOAH FALLS. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 209 

with the paleface tliey have no tradition left. 
A little learning has banished tradition and 
oral transmission. The name of John Sevier 
has been forgot, while the names of rival In- 
dian heroes of a far distant day still linger in 
shadowy form. It was near here, if not here, 
that "]N^ola Chuckee Jack" bnrst into the 
Indian country, spread death, ruin, and dis- 
may, and escaped by another route when his 
way was blocked by all but one tall peak. 
The tradition of the last fight runs that a 
band of Cherokees from the coast came by 
Socoah, seeking the West. They Avere met 
in this gap, ambuscaded near the falls, and 
but one spared, to be sent disgracefully back 
to tell his tribe to send more men, and no 
more squaws. 

Reaching the comfortable home and well- 
tilled farm of Jim Hornblower, we waited for 
that wily red man, whom we had seen fifty 
yards behind us not a half mile back. James 
came not. Dusky children appeared at the 
doors, and then vanished. We invaded Jim's 
wigwam. 'No Jim, no squaw, no papoose. 

We knocked and yelled. No reply, no corn. 
14 



210 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 



Sadly, wiser, and with profb under knowledge 
of the red man, we went on. 

The sociable paleface builds his cabin 
near the road; the solitai-y red man, wrapped 
in the mantle of his own solitude and silence, 
builds the road as far from all springs as he 
can, and then builds his house by the spring. 
As we went on down the valley a wild, shrill 
halloo came from behind, and was caught up 
and went reechoing down the valley before 
us. Strange! The houses were all closed. 
A deathlike stillness reigned. 'No answer. 
Inhospitable! Scipio Africanus expresses 
himself as favorable to an early retreat; but 
w^e came to see the Indians, and we're going 
through somehow. We know that the great 
Father's paleface children are as safe here as 
at their own firesides. It is merely Indian 
surliness and suspicion. Their white border- 
ers have told us, over on the other side of the 
line, that there is not a country on earth freer 
from violence, theft, or crime. The fields are 
filled with oats in neat stacks, and hay in 
cocks. The lands a mile or so below the 
summit of the Gap are very fertile, and the 



THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 211 

houses and fences are good. The agriculture 
is generally as good as that of the white 
mountaineers Avho dwell skirting the reserva- 
tion. We meet a party of bucks and squaws 
going to Warm Springs to play a game of 
ball. The squaws — Der Frcmeu Zastand 
ist hel'lagenswerth — carry the burdens, 
bats, bows and arrows. They beg tobacco 
and accept whisky, and tell us we can get 
corn — heap, plenty corn — but we don't, and 
we can't. 

At last we come to a house by the road- 
side — double-log, well-built, with long front 
porch. An old Bashi-Bazouk, with tremen- 
dous moustache and the general appearance 
of a Turk, bushy, white eyebrows and eagle 
eye, sat upon the floor, surrounded by four 
squaws. We hailed him: ^^Bashi-Bazouk, 
have you any corn?" 

"Ugh! ugh!" 

"Colonel, sell us a bushel; horse about to 
drop." 

" Got no corn." 

The old reprobate! One of the squaws 
was all the time pointing to her mcmth, inti- 



212 THE WAGrO]S^AUTS ABROAD. 



mating that they needed the corn to eat. 
They eyed us curiously, suspiciously — not 
hostilely. The squaws and papooses spoke 
Cherokee to one another, and all the while 
they could speak as good English as we 
could. 

The red devils would drink our whisky, 
chew our tobacco, and make any sort of 
promise of corn from the next house. From 
the only white storekeeper dwelling among 
them we afterward learned that if they were 
starving and had an abundance to sell, and 
were anxious to sell, they wouldn't sell a 
grain of corn to a stranger. Finally we 
stopped, dug up the hatchet, danced a war 
dance, smoked a war pipe, poured a libation 
out of the keg, and passed a resolution : 

JResolved, That Lo lovetli not his paleface brother; 
that Lo deserves his sad fate; that sympathy with Lo 
is misplaced and mawkish; that, after all the Great 
Father has done for Lo during the past two hundred 
years, Lo is an ingrate; that Lo has never been hit a 
lick amiss; that we hope somebody will hit Lo again; 
that there is no good Indian but a dead Indian. 

Then, in desperation, Panier and I resolved 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 213 

to risk, if need be to sacrifice, Blanc to tlie 
general weal. The vote stood: Affirmative: 
llamp, 10; Panier, 2; Xerxes, 1; Frank, 9-10; 
Jim, 1-10. Total, 14 votes. Negative: Blanc, 
1. Carried, 7iem. con. Mnch against his will, 
Panier and I painted Blanc a fine yellow with 
pigment ochre from onr canvased beef, blacked 
his eyebrows with powder, and hid his auri- 
comons poll beneath a sloncli hat. He was 
a noble red man when we got through with 
him and admonished him: " Go, Young-man- 
afraid-his-horse-will-die, get ns corn, if you 
have to dig up the hatchet, raise the war 
whoop, scalp and slay." 

We provided liim with wampum for peace- 
ful barter, and saw him off. With dismal 
face Blanc laid down the fence, and steered 
himself through the gap to a distant cabin 
which seemed to promise maize. After 
awaiting for many minutes the result of our 
desperate expedient, we heard a wild war 
whoop, a trampling as if a herd of buffalo had 
been stampeded, a tearing noise and a rend- 
ing asunder of bushes, and Blanc burst upon 
our astonished gaze, making 2:10 out of the 



214 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



laurel into the open ground. He looked like 
a pair of shears, opened to full stretch, as his 
legs encompassed at one bound a bit of 
open ground. His fiery red head gleamed 
upon the view for a moment like a meteor or 
a red fire beacon or a will-o'-the-wisp, as if 

The sun had sent him, like a ray, 

To say that be was coming up that way. 

And he plunged into the thicket again like 
an extinguished farthing-dip. Behind him 
came four bucks, tomahawks and scalping 
knives in hand, in full cry, war whoop and 
all, followed by five squaws and fourteen of 
the younger fry, all head up, opening on 
Blanc's trail. Panier and I took a tree apiece, 
sending: Picketus African us out to scout. 
Panier had a shotgun and two pistols; I was 
armed with two thirty-eights, with the 
schnicker schnee stuck in my belt. 

In a moment Blanc rushed out of the thick- 
et again, trailing after him about two hun- 
dred yards of muscadine vines and other 
climbing plants whose botanical character I 
didn't have time to observe, his clothes torn, 
his neck and hands scratched by briers and 



■y 







BLANC ON THE WARPATH. 



(215) 



216 THE WAGONAUTS A BUG AD. 



brambles, the perspiration streaking the yel- 
low ochre and powder stains down his face in 
rare and beautiful combinations; so that his 
'' human face divine " looked like a cross- 
barred gridiron or a miniature of the Madrid 
Escurial, while his fiery eyes glared over the 
rubiginous point of his rubicund nose. His 
skullcap was off, and his knotted and com- 
bined locks stood on end, each particular hair 
a burning and a shining light. 

'^Where's the corn?" I said calmly, deter- 
mined to soothe the distracted nerves of the 
Wagonauts, and to put on a bold front before 
the arrival of the enemy. 

^^Corn, h— 11!" he shouted. ^'Look at 
those autochthonal, aboriginal, ferro-rubigi- 
nous devils." Blanc swears fearfully classic 
and dreadfully polyglot oaths when he's ex- 
cited. 

As the redskins burst out of the laurel, 
with war whoop, tomahawk, and scalping 
knife, we covered them with our guns. They 
slowed down, paused, halted, grew silent. 
Conticuere oiiines. 

"Wait for the word," I whispered, as 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 217 

calmly as if I'd been buttering a muffin, be- 
ginning coolly to sharpen the fall schnicker- 
schnee upon the trunk of a great scaly bark 
hickory tree, striking fire at every stroke, 
feeling the edge, glancing calmly at the sharp 
edge and at the astonished redskins, and 
seeming to make a mental note of the num- 
ber and character of the scalps that would 
adorn my wampum belt and delight the war- 
like souls of our happy papooses when we 
returned home to our wigwams from the war- 
path. 

I never felt more bloodthirsty. Scalpetus 
Africanus now came in from a successful 
scout, and retired to the rear. Blanc here 
disgraced himself by wanting to go off and 
establish a hospital and put up a yellow flag- 
as the surgeon of the Wagon auts. 

I could see the light of battle and the Ber- 
serker rage of his Teutonic ancestors blazing 
in the bloodshot eye of Panier. I gave the 
enemy a significant glance, and brought the 
schnicker-schnee one more wipe down the 
great trunk of the scaly bark. It gave out a 
ring that resounded far up and down the sides 



218 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



of old Socoah, and struck out a blaze of wild 
fire that illumined the forests far and near. 
The redskins stole off with a disappointed 
" Ugh! ugh! " I have observed that all well- 
regulated Indians '^Ugh! ugh!" in Cooper's 
and other border novels. 

The remaining chapters of this part of my 
thrilling narrative maybe found continued in 
the New York Ledger. 

The corn problem was really serions. It 
isn't right to steal, but we made up our minds 
that we w^ere going to have oats or corn. 

It is the holy Sabbath day. We come now 
to a wild gorge, tributary to the Socoah, 
which sparkles with promise of trout. A 
friendly Indian, before whose eyes we waved 
the canteen, told us that it contained " heap 
trout." It being six bells, we tied up on ac- 
count of the holy Sabbath, merciful to our 
beasts, and needing Sabbatic rest ourselves. 
Then we didn't wet a line, or have two hours 
of good fly fishing up three miles of creek, 
rich in the speckled beauties; or catch fifty 
trout, and regale ourselves with a regal meal, 
cooked by a fire kindled in an old hickory 



THE WAGOJS^AUTS ABROAD. 219 



stump. I've no doubt but that we could 
have done it if it hadn't been Sunday. As it 
was Sunday, we didn't wet a line. Honest. 

Moving on from our resting place, we began 
to meet more and more Indians in Sunday 
dress, the squaws with a very decided fancy for 
red, the bucks in ordinary store clothes, and 
very good clothes, too. Panier and Blanc 
bitterly complained of me that I exchanged 
my sombre tie for a cravat of fiery red, as 
we entered the reservation. It made them 
deeply envious to see the young squaws of 
female persuasion gaze at me with admiring 
eyes. 

We stopped and talked to most of the red- 
skins, the men usually talking as a preface 
to requests for tobacco, and then shutting up 
like clams and relapsing into Cherokee. 
The young men were reticent, except when 
the canteen was brought out. The squaws af- 
fected to be ignorant of English, and wouldn't 
talk at all. Not even my flaming necktie 
would draw them out. I think this was on 
account of Blanc and Panier, for they gen- 
erally gazed at me with mute admiration. 



220 THE WAGOI^AUTS ABIIOAD. 



The natives had been to service, held by Da- 
vid Crow, a native preacher. 

At last we came to about fifty braves at a 
creek crossing, engaged in conversation be- 
fore separating for their homes. As they 
stood jal)bering Cherokee by the roadside, I 
addressed one portly fellow, who looked like a 
man in authority. He told us that corn was 
scarce, but that oats were abundant, and we 
should have feed. He directed a young buck 
to go with us, and furnish oats. Our taciturn 
friend tapped the canteen vigorously, and final- 
ly brought us to both oats and corn. It was 
time, for Jim lay down at this point and de- 
clined to make further effort; so that we had 
to send Jehu Africanus on Frank to bring 
back the corn. He left us with a look which 
said plainly: '^ When you see me again, this 
scalp lock of mine will be dangling at some 
wild brave's wampnm belt." Ootsie-tootsie 
sent back the corn and oats, and came him- 
self to see how James and the canteen were 
getting on. 

Taking advantage of our rest to plunge 
into the creek, we were surprised by a bevy 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 221 



of dusky maidens; but they didn't seem to 
be at all surprised. 

After feedin<^ and rest we were able to 
move on over the round, well-timbered hills 
of the beautiful Ocona-Luftee, a shallow, 
but broad, clear, lovely stream, far more 
beautiful than the famed "blue Juniata" of 
Campbell. Our crossing is in full view of 
Yellow Hills, the capital of Qualla Eeserva- 
tion, a vile American name substituted for 
the beautiful Indian name of Qualla. It is 
a picturesque village, set in amongst high 
hills, with neat cottages and large, convenient 
school buildings and store houses extended 
along the banks of the Ocona-Luftee. The 
large white house of the Superintendent sits 
upon a lovely knoll, where the United 
States flag is flying. Further up and high- 
er is the residence of the Chief of the Qual- 
la branch of the Cherokee tribe. Col. ]S^. J. 
Smith. 

As we cross the river a long line of Indian 
boys and girls files over a high foot log from 
a Sunday jaunt upon the lofty hill overlook- 
ing the village. As we draw near all faces 




LU 
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I- 
Lu 

D 

_1 
I 

< 

Z 

o 
o 
o 



(222) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 223 



wear signs of growing culture, satisfaction, 
and happiness. 

I reserve for the next cliapter some account 
of this rarely visited, quaint, and curious bit 
of barbarism and slowly dissipating savagery, 
set here in the midst of civilization — a mere 
speck ui)on the vast country east of the Mis- 
sissippi, a lost atom, so insignificant that few 
people have ever heard or know that there is 
a Cherokee settlement and a tribe dwelling 
in North Carolina. 




< 

Q. 
< 
O 



< 

a 



(22i) 



CHAPTER YI. 



Lo, the poor Indian. (Pope.) 
J WAS puzzled how to smuggle this chap- 
1 ter in under my rule. The information is 
valuable, but, perhaps, not useful. If it 
were useful, the world would have to suffer. 
Since it contains information it shall be cut 
short. Brevity's the soul of wit, where util- 
ity is the essence of stupidity. It's a crying 
pity that the useful should have been in- 
vented to make life not worth the living and 
to fill the world with stupid people, so muddy 
and dull of brain and so slow of foot that all 
the good things, such as money and money's 
worth, actually run over them on the road and 
fill their pockets. The Greeks, pretty well 
for their day, illustrated this with the story 
of the slow tortoise winning the race over the 
swift-footed hare— only the race should have 
overtaken the tortoise, actually run over him 

and forced him to win it, while the hare 
15 (225) 




(226) 



CHIEF NJ. SMITH. 



THE AVAGONAUTS ABROAD. 227 

should have "got left" by his own very 

swiftness. 

In 1806, when Georgia had determined that 
her civilized Cherokees should leave their 
happy homes, fertile fields, and fruitful or- 
chards, where they were happier, peacefuller, 
and, in some respects, more civilized than 
their white neighbors, who coveted their 
lands; and the national government had 
adopted the removal policy, a division of 
opinion occurred amongst the I^orth Carolina 
Cherokees. The State of ^orth Carolina, 
the justest of all the colonies in its dealings 
with its aborigines, was willing, because of 
services rendered the infant colony, to allow 
them to stay. Part went and part stayed. 
Qualla Reservation — known to the Indians 
as Qualla Division, or the Eastern Division 
of Indian Territory — was set apart for those 
who stayed. 

In 1830 the Qualla people had become be- 
sotted, drunken, and vile, while the Indian 
Territory branch, afar from the white man 
and iire water, had prospered and grown rich 
and civilized. Drowning Bear, a man of 



228 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



power and character, devoted himself to the 
reform of his people. It is true that most of 
these Indians will drink when liquor is of- 
fered, but the reform was genuine and lasting. 
Race sentiment and opinion is against liquors, 
and the laws against selling liquors to Indians 
are easily enforced. 

The only really dark blot upon the pale- 
face treatment of the aborigines was this de- 
portation of the Georgia Cherokees, because 
they alone of all the Indians had made gen- 
uine and thorough progress in civilization. 
The Cherokees seem to stand like the Cau- 
casian among the races, the only Indian tribe 
that has exhibited a fitness for anything but 
to be made give place to those who will use 
and not cumber the ground. 

The war, Avhich enlisted most of them in 
the Confederate service, chiefly in Thomas's 
Cherokee Legion, and among them Col. IST. J. 
Smith, the present Chief, interrupted their 
progress at Quail a. Thomas became insane 
and lost most of the money belonging to the 
Cherokees, and is now in the IS^orth Carolina 
Asyhmi for the Insane. Material losses were 



THE AYAGONAUTS ABROAD. 229 



of small consequence. War itself did not 
disturb them, for no Federal force ever en- 
tered the Cherokee country; but the demor- 
alization of war aflPected them as it did others 
and them partly by affecting others. 

Some years ago the Quail a Cherokees were 
willing to migrate, and in 1870 about two 
hundred did go to Indian Territory. They 
are now willing to remain here, although in- 
dividuals from time to time seek the main 
tribe, and there is at all times close commu- 
nication, and singly and in small parties they 
pass back and forth between Qualla and 
Tahlequah. 

Here they vote, exercise all rights of citi- 
zenship, including having a slice of their 
Reservation annually sold off by the State 
for taxes. Whethei* they are citizens by pre- 
scription or by statute I do not know. 

Their position is peculiar. The Reserva- 
tion is held in some sort of guardianship by 
the United States, and the United States 
Government exercises police powers, inter- 
dicts sales of liquors, and provides for their 
education. The right of eminent domain is 



230 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



actually in the State of North Carolina. 
The Cherokees elect a Council and a Chief 
every four years. The lands are held in com- 
mon, with a repartitioning every few years, 
with provision for equitable allowance for 
betterments and equalization of poor with 
fertile lands. The white storekeeper told me 
that they never engage in barter now. They 
buy and sell for cash or on credit, and pay 
their debts. Many of them are thrifty and 
accumulating. 

Until within a few years they voted the 
Democratic ticket. During the Blaine and 
Logan canvass, on account of Gen. Logan's 
Lidian descent, most of the Cherokee vote 
was cast for the liepublican ticket. Li the 
election of 1888 they defeated the Demo- 
cratic candidate for Congress, but he was a 
man they would not vote for. The Democrats 
charge this state of affairs upon the "Friends," 
who have sole charge of the education of the 
Qualla Indians. The Friends have not done 
well since, and they have been accused of 
mismanagement. The Superintendent, es- 
pecially, is accused by the Chief of stirring 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 231 



up dissensions. The Chief, I^. J. Smith, is a 
staunch Democrat. During Mr. Cleveland's 
administration an effort was made to substi- 
tute some other educational care, but the Indi- 
ana Friends alone could be induced to under- 
take the task, and they were finally reinstated. 

In 1850 there were seven hundred Chero- 
kees in Qualla, including a few Delawares 
and Catawbas, divided into seven clans, 
with seven towns. There are now about 
twelve or fifteen hundred, and Yellow Hills 
has been substituted for Qualla as the capital. 

The mission is cod ducted on the farming- 
out plan, the government paying $12,000 a 
year and furnishing the farm lands, the vine- 
yards, gardens, and ample school buildings. 
Yellow Hills is a beautiful village, neat, or- 
derly, and picturesque. There is an air of so- 
briety and order which indicates energy and 
an executive brain. The satisfied, studious 
look of the pupils, male and female, in about 
equal proportions, is a touching spectacle 
when one reflects upon the sad and yet inev- 
itable history and lot of this unfortunate race 
and considers that but a meagre remnant 



232 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



seems now about to redeem the past, after the 
crime of savagery has been expiated and the 
race has ahnost expired under the inexorable 
law of nature whicii makes climbing bitterly 
hard and seemingly cruel. 

That portion of the corn crop which we 
carry in our kegs gives us no trouble; but 
there is no end of trouble with that part of 
last year's crop which we can't get. Jim is 
unable to move beyond Yellow Hills. There 
is no corn at the store, and the Superintendent 
is out driving. Leaving Blanc absorbed in a 
thrilling border novel, Panier and I visited 
the school, where we saw about a hundred 
well-formed, handsome Indian maidens, 
mostly of decidedly mixed blood, although 
we were told that only a small percentage 
was of mixed blood. Three of those we 
saw were of unmistakable African descent. 
From the schoolhouse we went to call upon 
the Chief, Col. ^N". J. Smith, whom we found 
talking on his front porch with a gentleman 
to whom he introduced us as his son-in-law 
from Indian Territory. The chief invited us 
to be seated, and conversed affably for an 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 233 



hour. He is a robust man of about fifty, 
decidedly handsome in feature, with coal- 
blacl^ ringlets pomaded down his shoul- 
ders, keen black eyes, large, well-formed 
nose and high cheek bones. Well dressed 
in a neat business suit, he displayed a becom- 
ing, but not offensive or excessive, self-ap- 
preciation. Erect and commanding in form, 
he must have been a striking figure in full 
Confederate uniform on horseback, as he is 
now as a dignified gentleman. He is not only 
a gentleman in appearance but in manners, and 
he writes a beautiful hand and spells perfectly. 
Asked about the x^osition of the Cherokees, 
he said they were amenable to the civil and 
criminal laws of JN'orth Carolina. " But," he 
added, "we generally try to settle all difier- 
ences and disputes in Council and usually 
succeed." Eeticent and silent as the Indian 
usually is, he admitted that the Council in 
session is about as unruly a body as the Lower 
House of the American Congress. I spoke 
of two Indian comrades, the Walking-Stick 
brothers, with whom I had served during the 
late war. 



234 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



"O yes; AValkhig-Stick, Ot-on-a-iil-a-iia- 
us-tee. The older Ot-on-a-ul-a-iia-us-tee is 
dead, but I will have the other here in the 
morning if you can stay." 

The Walking-Stick Freres were not in de- 
mand as messmates in my regiment; but a 
drunken fellow, named Jake Doyle, who had 
once been a brilliant young lawyer, who was 
himself uncurrent as a messmate, took them 
in and formed a mess. The redskins adorned 
the back and sides of their tent with various 
picture-writings of the battles they never 
fought, descriptive of days and nights on the 
warpath after Yankee scalps, which were 
never scalped. Jake inscribed the front of 

the tent with: 

'' Jake Doyle and Staff." 

And reclined at ease and drank all the at- 
tainable whiskey, Avhile his Walking-Stick 
staff did all the work. 

Asking the chief about the absence of tra- 
ditions among his people, he said he had won- 
dered at it; but he could give no explanation 
of the curious phenomenon. The story of 
the last battle of the Cherokees at Socoah, 



THE WAaONAUTS ABKOAD. 235 



with, as he thought, the Catawbas, was the 
only tradition of which he knew anything at 
all. A gentleman from Washington was 
then collecting what he could find concerning 
their manners, customs, and folklore, and he 
hoped that he might develop more than he 
knew himself. Ours was a hasty tour, and 
of course we attach no importance to what 
we learned, more than in so far as it coincides 
with what others have developed concerning 
the curious loss of all facility in oral trans- 
mission. A little learning and a desire for 
more seems to be the death of traditional 
learnino' and lesfend. 

We prefaced all inquiries about the wars 
of the palefaces and the red men, with the 
remark that the Cherokees were such mag- 
nificent fighters that, if they had had our 
arms, they might have been the victors. In 
every case this was received with a broad 
smile upon faces that seldom smile. Mr. 
Smith smiled gracefully, bowed proudly, but 
with a pleased expression, and said: "As we 
were at home, I think the victory might have 
remained with us." 



236 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



The language of the Cherokees is musical 
and the syllabifications easily caught. Such 
words as O-to-na-ul-a-na-us-tee, Quo-Ahna- 
Ca-to-os-a, 0-co-na-luf-tee, ]N^a-an-ta-ha-la, 
Ca-ta-loo-chee, Tenassee, IN'o-la-chuckee and 
So-co-ah, pronounced Syoko and Tuck-e- 
see-gee, spoken by them are very musical 
and the words are easily caught. The lan- 
guage is composed of but few words, and its 
difficulties lie in its poverty. One word is 
made to do duty that would be performed by 
a hundred English words. For instance, the 
word for a needle stands also for any sharp- 
pointed instrument. If Tennessee, I^ola- 
Chuckee, Watauga, Holston, Suwanee, aud 
such words were ever Cherokee, they have 
forgotten them. 

The Superintendent kindly supplied us 
with corn, but was unable to furnish lodgings 
on account of having a party of United 
States engineers lodging with him. The 
store-keeper found us an upper room at the 
house of the paleface widow with whom he 
was boarding. Our room was reached by a 
tumble-down stair, leading up to a ramshackle 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 237 



landing in front of the door, npheld by four 
posts. The widow's handsome daughter was 
arranging the room, while we were carrying 
up our baggage. Blanc and I had made a 
trip apiece and Panier was making the as- 
cent, with a valise in one hand and the handle 
of the keg in the other, when the heavy 
structure gave way and crashed down into 
the garden. I was looking at Panier's un- 
steady efforts to steer the keg to where he 
could tap it " onbeknow^is; " but how the 
stair fell and how Panier made the door-sill, 
neither he nor I can tell. I'm not surprised 
that he's ignorant, for reasons I will not men- 
tion. When the dust cleared away, the 
stairs, the landing, the posts, Panier's valise, 
in sections, and his store of cosmetics were 
scattered amongst the cabbages, and Panier 
was clinging to the doorway with one hand, 
to the keg with the other, and to the bung- 
hole with his teeth. It was a narrow escape 
from almost certain death. 

The widow rushed out, wringing her hands 
— it was wash day— believing that her daugh- 
ter had fallen. We tried to relieve her mind 




(238) 



PANIER'S CATASTROPHE. 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 239 



by pointing to the imprisoned pair, looking 
out at the door, like a pair of caged turtles, 
she blushing like a peony and Panier con> 
scions only of the keg's charms. With the 
aid of Stepachus, Blanc and I soon restored 
the fallen stairs and relieved the imprisoned 
pair from their awkward imprisonment. 

This accident really happened to Panier, 
but he meanly came to me as the historiog- 
rapher of the Wagonautic expedition and 
said: "That doesn't go." I protested that 
I'd already half framed it. "If you don't 
promise to lay it on Blanc, I'll put it in the 
JBanner on you." Terrorized and under 
duress, I made the promise, which I have faith- 
fully redeemed above. 

Pisces cleaned the remains of the string of 
trout which we didn't catch in Socoah on 
Sunday, and with the addition of basted 
chicken, roasted eggs, and broiled bacon we 
made a delightful meal, smoked the pipe of 
peace, and retired to a sweet sleep on the 
banks of Ocona-Luftee. 

As the sun climbed over the high eastern 
hills^ we bade farewell to the lovely hill-en- 



2tl:0 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



circled capital of Qiialla, to the beautiful 
Ocona-Luftee, to the fair widow and her 
fairer daughter, and took the high road over 
the Tuckeeseegee divide, wiiich narrowly 
separates Tuckee-see-gee from Ocona-Luf- 
tee. < -..^^i 

We have gone through the Qualla Chero- 
kee Keservation, down its most populous val- 
ley, through its roughest and most picturesque 
scenery. Coming through, by way of their 
thoroughfare and by their churches, we have 
seen most of the population in their Sunday 
dress and holiday garb, men, women, and 
children. We have seen their houses and 
farms and visited them at home, most unwel- 
come. We have talked to many of them, en- 
joyed a new and a delightful experience, 
sauced with some hardships for Jim and some 
thrilling experiences for Blanc. The curl 
has been taken out of the knotted and com- 
bined locks of Scipio Africanus by abject 
fear for his scalp, and Blanc's ruby locks 
have paled to the hue of a farthing tallow 
candle wick. 

In a superficial way we have learned some- 



THE WAG^O:^^AUTS ABROAD. 241 

thing about Lo, and we think better of him 
than when corn was scarcer. This Monday 
morn, we have seen the native at work — the 
red man, actually at work — diiving oxen, 
reaping^ mowing — one actually running a 
reaper — shade of McCormack! We have 
passed by and seen a road-working party. 
Every Indian we have seen this morning has 
been at work. They are in their work-a-day 
attire, and even in that they are well dressed. 
The ten miles to Charleston, noAV Bryson 
City, are soon made, and we are once more in 
a railroad town, which the Western JN^orth 
Carolina is rapidly connecting with Asheville 
on one side and Marietta, Ga., on the other. 
The town is full of prospectors, northern cap- 
italists, mineralogists, and adventurers. A 
fine hotel has been built, where we found 
specimens of all sorts of minerals and timber. 
A company of masons are cutting the fine 
granites quarried here, with which cheap but 
ambitious buildings are going up. Panier 
wanted to camp here because we found at the 
hotel black coffee, huckleberry pie, and 

cracked walnuts with silver pickers. 
16 



242 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Crossing the Tuckeeseegee over a bridge, 
we pushed on to the Little Tennessee, by the 
Xantehala road. We intended to spend a 
week fishing in the Nantehala, which is a 
noted trout stream, but Jim has put an end 
to our sport. We are told that we will have 
good road down the Little Tennessee and 
horrible travelling across mountains by the 
Maryville route; but our informant always 
comforts us when we tell him we've come by 
Socoah Gap, with : " Well, ef you-uns is 
been through the Shoko, you won't see no 
more bad road." 

Of our weary, winding way down the Lit- 
tle Tennessee in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER VII. 



That night a child might understand 

The dev'l had business on his hand. 

(Burns.) 

O corn; a fagged horse. This country lias 
._\ a railroad; but corn is measured in a 
" half bushel." The people say that the in- 
flux of strangers and increased stock-raising 
have used up last year's crop; but why don't 
the store-keepers bring corn by rail, instead 
of buying scant half-bushels, drawn out like 
coin out of old stockings, by the necessity for 
a few dimes of cash? 

Five miles short of Bushnell, on the rail- 
way at the mouth of the Tuckee-see-gee, we 
had to halt for Jim's convenience. He fell 
down and declined to assume again the up- 
rightness of a self-respecting equine. Jim's 
a remarkable animal. He's reduced the art 
of leaving all the work to his companion to 
a nicety. He does none of the work and all 

of the giving up, as if he'd been hard at it. 

(243) 



24:4 THE AYAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Frank is also a remarkable animal in his way. 
Contrary to the usual way, he does all the 
work and all the blowing. Jim's the only 
idler 1 ever saw who didn't blow. 

A kind, bustling little woman, with a min- 
gled air of happiness and weariness from toil, 
made us at home. "Eight children? All 
yours, madam?" "O yes, and two more — 
two girls married— one in Kentucky and one 
in Tennessee." By and by the husband came 
in from his work: a hale, hearty, blue-eyed 
man, whom the younger children clambered 
on, hugged and attacked his pockets. He'd 
been by the store, for he drew out a paper of 
candy. He is a renter and fairly well-to-do. 
Questions are asked, back and forth, and we 
find that he Avas with Ransom in Virginia, 
and was at the battle of the " crater," which 
he called the " blow up." His graphic pri- 
vate soldier's account of that dreadful slaugh- 
ter, when the Federals hurled a negro division 
into an exploded mine and got them slaugh- 
tered almost to a man, with small loss, com- 
paratively, to the Confederates, was enjoyed 
more than one usually enjoys war stories. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 245 



The citizen generally doesn't like war tales, 

because he wasn't there; and the old soldier 

is generally waiting until he can get his own 

^'yarn" in. 

As we fight our battles o'er; 

And battles that we never fought before. 

A chill fell upon us when he said he was at 
Petersburg until nigh the wind up. " My 
brother lost his leg at Petersburg, and I 
come home." 

"Fetched your brother home?" said 
Panier. 

"JNTo; I never fotch him home; he couldn't 
come; but I knowed I was needed at home, 
an' I come." The man had clearly been a 
good soldier. He was evidently a good man, 
intelligent for his grade, although ignorant 
and poor. Technically a deserter, the cir- 
cumstances excused it, if anything can ex- 
cuse forsaking the cause in which one enlists. 
Nevertheless, there was a cold lull in the talk; 
and, when his name was mentioned next day, 
each one said, by one impulse : " I wish Sni- 
der hadn't mentioned his leaving." 

For the first time, I tried a bed to-night. 



216 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



and wished I hadn't. After wrestling with 
the native burghers of these solitudes wild 
and inaccesible, I resolved hereafter to try a 
couch of flax hackles, nettles, chestnut-burrs, 
thistles, thorns, anything, in preference to a 
native North Carolina bed of musty straw 
and dense popuhUion. 

Our stopping place was named the Willow 
Fountain — a grave mistake, for it suggested 
to Blanc to sing; " Tit-willow, tit- willow." 
A living willow, at the corner of the house, 
had been bored in the center and was dis- 
charging a three inch stream of cold, pure 
water brought down in a log pipe from a 
mountain spring a mile above. Aquarius 
Africanus couldn't be made to understand 
how a living willow could yield living waters. 
It stood there to speak for itself, a tree of 
fifty feet in height, pouring a continual stream 
of water from a spigot in the trunk, three 
feet from the ground. 

Next morning we crossed the Tuck-ee-see- 
gee, and pursued our way down the winding 
trough of the Little Tennessee, wdiose narrow 
canyon winds between long, low, steep, thick 



THE WAGOJ^^AUTS ABROAD. 247 



wooded hills and high bluff knobs, usually 
with a height of from five to eight hundred 
feet above the river, with sometimes only 
room for the road along the brink of the river. 
Often the road climbs the sides of steep hills, 
skirting sheer precipices, ivhich rise high 
above and look down below the road. Some- 
times our way winds up to the very summits 
and then winds down again to avoid some 
impassable point. This natural Macadam 
makes Socoah ashamed of itself. Steep and 
rocky on the hillsides, rocky and danger- 
ous on the cliff edges, we are travelling 
over the upturned edges of this uphoven 
stratification, where the whole foundation of 
the earth is on edge. There are loose rocks, 
fast rocks, sharp rocks, round rocks, smooth 
rocks, rugged and ragged rocks, all along 
the riverside road. It is the worst road on 
this terrestrial ball, and yet a good engineer 
and five hundred dollars a mile would make 
it a good road. Generally North Carolina 
has the best mountain roads I have ever 
travelled, especially upon the old thorough- 
fares of the past, as far west as Mount Ster- 



24S THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



ling; but the impulse didn't last from Ral- 
eigh this fill* west, although this is an old 
main road. 

The season here is further advanced. We 
were told that the Qualla country is two 
weeks ahead of the Jonathan's Creek region. 
Here elder bushes bear dead ripe berries, 
which were only in bloom on the Cataloochee. 
The road is lined with two beautiful varieties 
of wild pea, one lowly, the other high climb- 
ing. Many kinds of purple and yellow flow- 
ers bloom by the way. I've practiced my 
botany on Blanc and Panier until it's frazelled 
to a ravelled edge. Early on our journey 
I'd no difficulty in convincing them that a 
field of red clover was, really and botanical- 
ly a field of white clover, and only red in the 
botanically unimportant matter of color; 
whereat they marveled greatly, but swal- 
low^ed the statement with scientific credulity 
and unction and made a note of it. JSTow, 
names and generalizations drawn from the 
inner consciousness won't go down any more. 
I've tried, occasionally, admitting that 
there are some thin«:s T dont know; but 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 249 



this has rather weakened than strensfth- 
enecl the cause. 

The river runs, now smooth, now broad, 
shallow and rippling, now boiling, foaming, 
and roaring in tumultuous cascades over 
among and around great granite boulders, 
now plunging down in long rapids. All 
along we can see lodged sawlogs among the 
rocks, log slides on the opposite bank, and 
great piles of logs, got down too late for the 
last "tide." The river is muddy with a few 
inches of rise and it has recently been over 
our road, which is impassable at high water. 

At one point we had to fill up a great hole 
with rocks before we could go on. Petrea 
Africanus carelessly threw a great, sharp- 
edged rock and cut off the toe of Blanc's 
shoe as clean as if it had been done with a 
razor. "That's the narrowest escape from 
an un-toe-Avard accident I ever saw," said 
Panier, unfeelingly. "One foot further, and 
'twould have cut off your heel, and you'd 
have been ill ' heeled ' for this road. Indeed, 
I don't see how you'd have gone toe- ward 
home, if it had gone an inch further." 



250 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



Beautiful at first, tlie scenery of tliis canyon 
is a bit monotonous after a few hours' travel, 
which is a heavy drain on the canteen. There 
are some lovely scenes and views unexcelled. 
Here is a magnificent stretch of two miles of 
calm river, between high, Scotch-looking 
hills, bounded in the far by lofty moun- 
tains which seem to wall in the river and 
make it a long, silvery lake, high- walled, syl- 
van, and wild. Below us, seen from the crest 
of a high hill we've just climbed, lies a 
heavily wooded island, blue-hued, soft, misty, 
and lovely in the sunlight — almost a repro- 
duction of a photograph of Loch Katrine and 
Douglass Island, partly the scene of the 
"Lady of the Lake." We almost expect, as 
we gaze, to see Ellen Douglas's light shallop 
fly across the sparkling waters to meet James- 
Fitz-James. 

Here at this point is a fine contrast. We 
are climbing up to a level stretch of road 
along a sheer precipice. We are on the 
shadowed edge of a hill in a dark forest. The 
slope above us is one succession of huge 
rounded rocks, piled in vast confusion to- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 251 

ward the summit, and looking down upon us 
with great round, staring, lichen eyes. Tall 
trees are growing among the i*ocks, and here 
and there wild flowers of all hues mock at 
adornment of the savage wildness of stupen- 
dous rocks, as if sylvan elves had decked the 
rough head of the mountain in sportive con- 
test, as Titania bedecked the head of Bot- 
tom. Scant wild vines clamber over great 
boulders, and cling to their gray, rugged 
sides, as they reach, round, massive, and 
confused, toward the summit, as if Titans 
had piled here a giant cairn, memorial of 
some great victory in the Saturnian wars. 
Beneath us a steep precipice falls into a 
dense thicket upon the narrow brink of the 
river, which rushes roaring on between green 
hills. 

Beyond us, in the full sunlight, a green 
hillside, gently hollowed between two rough 
ridges, faintly veiled with a pale, filmy blue 
haze, lies serene and placid over against the 
dark, rugged, frowning cliff, along whose 
steep side we are creeping. The sunnjr sides 
of the opposite hillside are guarded at ridge 



252 THE WAao:N^AUTS ABKOAD. 



edges by sentinel pines, with gray rocks 
showing through. 

As we gaze upon the soft study of mingled 
light, shadow, and color, we w^onder how the 
painter dares, with his few meager pigments, 
to attempt such infinity of color, hue, shade, 
tint, and ever and infinitely varying light ef- 
fects. And yet it is the artist, after all — not 
reproducing, but at best merely indicating 
these effects — who acquaints man with na- 
ture, and embodies and inter2:)rets its subtle 
spirit, and briugs the soul of man eii rapport 
with the soul of nature. 

Every minute point upon yonder green 
hillside has its own hue and tint, its own ef- 
fects of light and shadow; and yet all is di- 
vine unity, chiefly one green of many greens, 
with here and there gray rock and dusky 
trunk. 

The dark boughs of the spruces furnish 
the groundwork black, the dark sepia, whence 
we rise to the warm, bright yellow-green of 
the box alders. The slaty ash; the bright, 
green hickories; the dull, green cucumber 
magnolias; the yellow, light-reflecting chest- 



THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 253 



nuts; the dark-glazed hollies, throwing back 
the sunbeams; the linns and the various oaks, 
each with its own peculiar tint; yellow masses 
of true lovers' knot, woven in golden tapes- 
tries at the river's edge; the bright scarlet 
cones of the flaming sumach; white masses 
of prickly ash blossoms, showing beneath 
tangled festoons of wild grape vines which 
link tree and tree, give inlinite variety where 
there is also perfect unity. 

In the center of the sunlit, shallow concave 
a clustered mass of dark hemlocks gives to 
our picture its deepest shades. Upon the 
rocky ridge edges, upon both sides, a thin 
line of scraggy, yellow-green mountain pines 
bounds the picture and forms the frame. 

Colors, tints, hues, and shades and shad- 
ows are as varied as kinds of trees, sorts of 
rocks, position, angle of light-fall — as varied 
as there are individual leaves, and as each 
separate point of the infinity of points in the 
landscape. The common man can enjoy this; 
the artist is the man who also knows that he 
can interpret something of it all to his fellow- 
man. 



254 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



A light breeze sweeps over the scene, and 
instantly npturned leaves, glistening in the 
snnlight, present a new-blended color mass. 
The ash and the linn turn up the white under- 
leaves, and everywhere some varying shade 
of nnderleaf mingles its hue and tone with 
upperleaf sides. 

A light cloud sweeps across the sky and 
veils the sun, and all is changed again. Ev- 
ery point and each leaf, each hue in the warm 
sunlight and the misty, sunlit blue, becomes 
some new thing in the shadow. 

The clouds thicken and the skies darken. 
The spruces and pines frown grimly and 
deepen almost to blackness, and the hillside 
stands lowering over the darkening river. 
Thunders roar and reverberate along the nar- 
row canyon way; hillside answers hillside 
with solemn echoes; lightnings flash and 
light up the Titan cairn above us, gleam upon 
the long reach of the river below us, and 
light up the now frowning hill beyond the 
rjver, where but now the sunlight sweetly 
nestled and played. 

The rain begins to fall, and all is changed 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 255 

again. The distant mountains fVide from the 
view; the nigher hills pale into misty indis- 
tinctness; and the opposite hill, that was but 
now so sweet a picture, stands ghostlike in 
the rain and mist beyond the river. The 
clouds settle down about us and over us, and 
our view is confined to the road, the near 
rocks, the giant trees by the roadside, the 
towering hemlocks beneath us, and the 
troubled surface of the dark, rolling river. 

It rains in torrents, just when we are 
obliged to walk up a steep hillside. We 
hang our coats in the wagon. It's easier 
drying out woolen shirts than outer clothes, 
and there are no colds in this air. Scotch- 
ing, pushing, and sliding we go. 

With two feeds of corn and oats, we are 
independent to-day. We may camp wher- 
ever the variable Jim chooses to lie down 
and "knock off" the work that Frank's do- 
ing. There are no houses now along our des- 
olate road — miles and miles of hill and forest, 
cliff and bluff and mountain, unbroken. 

About dusk we come upon a desolate. God- 
forsaken spot. The very air, miles before we 



256 THE wago:n^auts abroad. 



reached it, seemed laden with a foul odor of 
evil deeds. A suggestion of evil seemed to 
lurk in the forest by the roadside, as we drew 
nigh. A spirit of evil seemed to look out of 
the rained hewn log house and the surround- 
ing " clearing," as evil glares forth from the 
faces of wicked men. 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 

And said as plain as whisper in the ear: 
The house is haunted. 

Foul deeds seemed to have stamped them- 
selves upon the gables, roof-comb, and chim- 
ney corners of the ill-browed ruin. Some 
subtle air of mystery, some uncanny sugges- 
tion of dark deeds done here within this 
lonely cabin, seemed to take shape, and to 
glower out of crack, cranny, and chimney, 
as if the shackling tenement were filled with 
a soul of evil. 

There is always some sweet invitation about 
a human dwelling place. This remote, lone- 
ly ruin bore no longer any semblance of the 
human habitation it had once been. It 
looked as if some foul fiend — some doing of 



THE WAGOJSTAUTS ABKOAD. 257 

some foul deed — violating all the laws and 
rights of human hospitality and fellowship, 
had instantly blasted it into a seared and 
scathed dwelliiig place for the very genius of 
inhumanity. 

Panier, when asked to push through the 
thick, dank bushes to reconnoitre, drew back 
instinctively. A weed-grown hell's two-acres 
of stony ground, that was once a garden, 
corn patch, and orchard, has not yet been al- 
together reclaimed by invading forest and 
thicket, as if forest and thicket yet drew back 
from the accursed spot. A few larkspurs 
bloom among the weeds; a sickly marigold 
and a peony peep out from amongst tall bull 
nettles, rank nightshades, dense, thick-lipped 
burdocks, fat docksj and foul-smelling " jim- 
sons." The home-loving plantain has de- 
parted from the unholy, unhomelike abode of 
evil. 

The brook that runs out of the thicket 

glides along with a scared look and a Avhis- 

pered warning, murmuring without music by 

the corner of the house, as if its sweet voice 

had been once chilled and its current be- 
17 



258 THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 



fouled with some taint that no pure outgush- 
ino's of cloud or mist or sweet distillations of 
mica sands had ever been able to wash pure 
and sw^eet again. 

A few half-rotten peach trees and a scrag- 
gy apple tree stand barren of fruit, blasted 
as by some unfertile curse. A rotting rail, 
scattered here and there, shows where a fence 
has separated a perhaps once happy cottage 
home from the wilderness, which now reaches 
out its arms to reclaim its own, and yet draws 
back and shudders to eml)race the accursed 
thing. A pile of rocks, yet one upon an- 
other, shows where once onthouses have stood 
and crumbled with the prevailing curse and 
its ruin. 

Phoibos drove up, Avith face ashy and 
hands trembling with fear, and the horses 
snorted with terror. 

As we approach the house a slimy serpent 
glides beneath the floor, and the wind sighs 
through the cracks betw^een the logs. The 
comb of the cabin roof has rotted away, and 
the rest of the room is leaky; the rafters are 
damp, discolored, and rotten; the door is 



THE WAGON^AUTS AlillOAD. 259 



gone; the floor has a moist, unwholesome 
smel], and it has garnered, here and there, 
wind-blown piles of leaves and filth, which 
lie rotting in the corners. Horrors! here is 
a child's dolJ; and yonder, in a pile of reek- 
ing rubbish, is a woman's shoe. 

Panicus was eager to drive on, but the 
Wagonauts are nothing if not brave. We 
determine to lodge in this dreadful house, 
thouo'h it blast us. 

House, '^ clearing," dying orchard; the 
dense, gloomy forest; the matted, tangled, 
impenetrable thickets, which reach up to the 
very corner of the house; the weed-grown 
cleared plat, with its mockery of lingering 
flowers, growing there now as if in awful 
penance for some unpardonable ancestral sin; 
the far-stretching wilderness, miles either 
way to human habitation; the deep, narrow 
gorge; the sullen, roaring river; the brief 
piece of road, coming stealthily out of the 
bushes, and hiding at once in the thicket be- 
yond; the slimy insects, crawling upon the 
moist rocks of the old, half-fallen chimney, 
oppress the spirits. One can almost imagine 



260 THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 

vague forms flitting in the wood, hovering in 
the dnsk of the thicket, peering out of the 
dark, cavernous recesses whence the timid 
brook steals upon its fearful way to the dark 
river. 

A mountain-locked lake which the river 
has formed here lies silent, like a dead sea, 
mirroring huge, sombre rocks, beyond which 
the river roars down its rocky channel; and 
the green, silent, stagnant waters of the lake 
seem to share the curse of the lonely house, 
as if a wholesome reach of pure water had 
been, by one fell curse, dammed here into a 
silent cesspool. 

I confess that I never felt such sickening 
sinking of the heart as when we found our- 
selves actually in possession, wath our bag- 
gage moved in. Something seemed to w rite 
in ghostly letters upon the clammy wall: 
" Who enter here, leave hope behind." 

"We soon had a bright lire of clapboards 
burning upon the broken hearth. A bed of 
glowing coals supplied a supper of broiled 
breakfast bacon, corned beef, a pot of smok- 
ing coffee, and a dozen roasted eggs. After 



THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 261 



a mere drop to take off the chill of the even- 
ing and to clear away the sense of loneliness, 
we fell to with keen appetites. I'm sure that 
I've never enjoyed a meal more at the Bruns- 
wick. 

After supper we spread our beds doAvn — 
two planks for Blanc, three for Panier and 
myself — on log ends, off the damp floor, with 
oilcloths and blankets spread down. The 
biscuit box, turned on end, serves for a table. 
Cards are drawn out, and we play " hearts " 
until we tire of cards, blow out the candles, 
and fill pipes and smoke and talk — talk low, 
and whisper of things uncanny and of crimes 
committed in old houses, of ghosts that walk 
in lonesome places and haunt old ruins; tell 
ghost stories, until the hair rises on end, and 
the chill wind through the open door almost 
seems to take ghostly form, and the firelight, 
as it flickers, seems to burn bluer and paler 
than its wont. 

Something chills the fountains of conver- 
sation. Talk flags. It is almost midnight. 
The flickering light of the dying embers 
casts weird shadows upon the wall. The 



262 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 



novel surroundings, onr wet garments, and a 
pipeful more than usual have banished sleep. 
The deep, monotonous roar of the river be- 
yond the hill sounds ominously solemn and, 
by contrast, brings to mind the dead-sea lake, 
whose stagnant waters wash the foot of this 
accursed patch of ground. Fireflies, like 
great w^ill-o'-the- wisps, flit uncannily in 
swamp and thicket, lighting up the scene 
with a ghostly ])hosphorescence. The dis- 
tant howling of wolves is borne in by the 
wind from the thickets behind us; and it 
draws nigher and nigher until it resounds un- 
comfortably close to the open door — that 
open door Avhich will never shut again. All 
sounds of katydid, screech owl, night hawk, 
tree frogs, and the deep bass of the bullfrog 
in the dead-sea lake below us fill the forest 
with an uncanny clamor. I have never, even 
in Southern swamps, heard such fearful chorus 
of lonesome, aw^e-inspiring night sounds of 
insect and night bird, deepening the sense of 
loneliness and utter desolation. 

Panier made a sickly efl'ort to jest about 
the woman's shoe that lay in the rotting dirt 



THE AYAGOXAUTS ABIIOAD. 2G3 



heap ill the corner. His words recoiled, and 
he glanced fearfnlly aronnd with an involnn- 
tary shudder of horror and was silent. 

Blanc took the little child's doll as an ob- 
ject about which to weave a ghost story, 
which made Cowerus shudder and draw him- 
self into the embers; but Blanc only aroused 
a spirit which would not down. He recoiled, 
terrified at his own creation, and became 

silent. 

Soon we are all silent, with that silence in 
which men read one another's thoughts. What 
crime has cursed this deserted tenement? 
That some blight lies upon it is certain. 
Some fatal reputation, stamped upon its feat- 
ures, makes it shunned of men and shuddered 
at as men steal by — as we shuddered, when 
foolhardiness tempted ns to lodge here. 

Does that deepening stain on the floor and 
the wall, which seems to grow deeper and 
darker, tell the tale? Anger and the sudden 
blow? Jealousy and the stealthy axe-stroke 
and a crushed skull? A guilty pair and a 
victim sunk in the dark river? Guilt, a 
sheltered paramour, the stealthy knife, the 



264 THE WAGONAUTS ABJIOAD. 



snake-like gliding* toward a darkling couch — 
a wife blood-boltered and sweltering? There 
is something. 

It is in the air; the walls reek with it; the 
river's roar shouts it aloud. The wind whis- 
pers it with a dying sigh through the pines. 
The night bird shrieks it out. The brook 
murmurs it. The screech owl laughs it 
forth and revels in it. The unwholesome 
wings of the uncanny bat whisper it as they 
glide in and out by the open door in the dim 
firelight. 

The firelight is but a faint flickering of 
dying embers, deepening the shadows in the 
corners and in the ragged roof, where no 
friendly star peeps in from on high. We can 
hear one another's breathings and heart beats. 

Something comes gliding in at the open 
door — something vague, mysteriously taking 
shape, seeming to diffuse itself and then fad- 
ing out by all the cracks and crannies of the 
old cabin. Again it appears, lingers, em- 
bodies itself for a moment, and again fades 
into thin air and vanishes. 

Three pistols click and the harsh noise 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 265 

seems, to our quick senses, to fill all tlie wild 
gorge with useless noise. Three voices whis- 
per as one: " Weapons are useless here." It 
was as a profanation, and yet it was only an 
instinctive clutching at something. 

Whispering together, chilled, and terror- 
stricken, we agree to speak to it if it return; 
and the shuddering Panier, the bravest of 
oui- party, is appointed to the task. 

Again it comes, again takes shape — a 
vague, misty something—" shape that shape 
has none "—transparent, but an embodied 
something, vaguely defined, but defined— a 
half human shape, with large, flowing drap- 
ery, dimly outlined upon the black back- 
ground of darkness, by the faint flicker of 
lingering sparks in the fireplace of the huge 
chimney. 

Feai-, abject fear — which we do not even 
conceal from one another — has so keenly shar- 
pened our senses that all sounds, the roar of 
the river, the dismal sighing of the wind, the 
howl of the wolf, the cries of night birds, the 
hoot of the great owl, the screech owl's el- 
dritch laugh — all the solemn, lonely sounds 



2G6 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



of night and solitude — seem to resound, re- 
doubled, one deep, awful chorus of warning 
or of mockery. 

'' What do you seek here? " feebly whispers 
Panier, our chosen spokesman. 

Instantly a comnumding and a terrible fig- 
ure defined itself in the center of the room, 
reached out a long, bony, white-clad arm and 
a skeleton, skinny finger; and a voice as 
sepulchral and deep as if it had come from 
the earth's profoundest bowels said: ''J am 
thy Governor's ghost. I am the spirit of the 
Governor of ^N^orth Carolina. Gentlemen, 
it's a long time between drinks." 

When I awakened at dawn out of a troubled 
sleep, Panier said: ^^ Pamp, what the devil 
was the matter with you last night? Blanc 
and T had got up to tap the canteen — so wet 
and chilly we couldn't sleep. While we were 
drinking you fell into the dreadfullest night- 
mare I ever saw. We couldn't rouse you, 
and finally we gave you a drink and turned 
you over to dream it out." 

The unmitigated liai"! The liars! When 
they both know as well as I do that we all 



THE WAGONUATS ABROAD. 267 



tliree saw the ghost of the Governor of North 
Carolina. It has cnred me of lodging in old 
ruined cabins hereafter. Wise men only 
need to learn once. 

Of our journey to Maryville I will speak 
in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The way was long, the night was cold, 
The steeds they were infirm and old. 

(Scott.) 

WE left the haunted house, glad that it 
didn't rain during the night, pleased 

that the Governor of ]N"orth Carolina paid his 
respects before we left the State, and glad to 
get away from a ruin Avhicli was only less 
lonely, forbidding, and desolate in the full 
morning light than by dusldight. The sign- 
board tells us that it's six miles to Rocky 
Point. Tliey don't spell well here, and sign- 
board nomenclature would unsettle the old 
atlases; but they do make signs well in this 
country. Except at crossroads and forks of 
the road, where they're especially needed, 
the roads are well supplied with signboards. 
Throughout the Indian country we found the 
mileposts entirely primitive — an arrow point- 
ing the way, with the number of miles notched 

on the post. 
(268) 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 269 



At Rocky Point, where a stony cape nar- 
rowed the river, the late rise had lodged a 
dozen sawlogs in the road, where onr way 
jutted against impassable stones on the far 
side of a deep creek with an ugly ford. Cross- 
ing to where Ave could leap ashore, we had to 
spend two hours log rolling. I revived my 
knowledge of skids, handspikes, '^ pea," 
"cut," and "cross-lift;" but I had to con- 
fess that Loginus Africanus had more of 
what is called "judgment" than any of us. 
Improvising skids and cutting handspikes, 
we toiled and rolled there in the red-hot sun 
for almost two hours, until we'd cleared a 
road by which we could barely pass. Two 
miles on we met a road-working party, to 
whom we complained that they hadn't cleared 
out the obstructions. They looked surprised, 
and told us they'd, been over that part of the 
road and cut all the overhanging bushes, 
which was all the law required. It seemed 
to them excessively funny that they should 
be expected to move sawlogs, when the next 
rise would clear them out. We "jawed" at 
them and they "jawed " back good-natured- 



270 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



ly, and theirs was, truly, the best-humored 
side of the argument. 

As we reach the crest of along hill, we see 
Panier start back with horror depicted upon 
his classic features. Coming up, we see a 
big rough mountaineer with a hangdog look 
and a general air of " pure cussedness," 
holding a long rifle at a recover. When 
Panier first saw him, he'd a dead bead on him, 
and he thought his days were numbered; but 
the fellow was only shooting at a mark set up 
by the side of the road. " I hain't a gwyne 
to be a hurtin' uv you-uns," he said. If he 
had had no gun, we would have advised him 
to be careful that we didn't hurt him for 
shooting near to a public highway contrary 
to law, but we forebore. 

This fellow was a fine specimen of the 
lazy, trifling, do-nothing fellow, that marries 
a good mountain gii"l, who must marry some- 
body — or ought to — and then loafs and loung- 
es, while she toils and slaves and bears him 
a houseful of children and is his squaw. How 
they live. He that feedeth the raven — yea, 
providently caters for the sparrow — only 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 271 



knows. Just beyond him, we come to a 
cabin, upon a rocky knoll, in a God-forsaken 
spot, miles from any neighbor habitation, 
with a bit of garden patch, a few peach 
trees and cultivable ground nowhere else 
thereabout. 

'^ Rocky Point, ma'am?" we asked of a 
pale, thin, but good-looking woman who stood 
in the doorway nursing a sickly child, with 
two tow-heads clinging to her apron strings. 
She wore an air of utter weariness and 
loneliness, but of meek patience, cow-like 
rather than human — a woman to be kicked 
and cuflPed and starved, to toil and bear 
children and go on to the end, because she 
is of too tough fibre to die, and yet doesn't 
know what on earth she lives for. Such 
women, here at least, live to an old age, dry 
up and die, after years of toil, without know- 
ing that life has imposed upon them more 
than their share of its burdens. 

" Rocky Point, ma'am ? " 

" Hit air, stranger, an' a rocky p'int hit be, 
shore enough." 

"Spring, ma'am, anywhere hereabout?" 



272 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



"^o, we hain't got any water liyar." 
"Lonesome place, ma'am." 
"Hit air indeed, stranger; hit's the lone- 
somest i^lace as ever I lived." 

This she said as if the lazy lont who was 



5? 



shooting at the mark there in the " holler 
didn't relieve it mnch of loneliness. Poor 
devil ! she has chosen her lot — to go from 
cabin to cabin, trudging on foot, moving on, 
moving on, half starved, all the time toiling, 
while her lazy husband takes his ease and 
plays lord and master, until he commits 
some crime and is gaoled, or gets into some 
drunken brawl and is killed, and then she 
weeps and believes she is sorry and makes a 
better living for her children than he ever 
made for her. 

Three miles now to the summit of Great 
Smoky — a dreadful road, we've been told. 
The devil was ne'er so black as he's painted. 
The road is better than the Socoah road, and 
far better than the Little Tennessee road, and 
it isn't a " daisy " either. We have to walk, 
and it rains; but we toil np, doing the Cale- 
donian — scotching — pushing, slipping, and 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 273 



sliding. Some luxurious people may think 
that this isn't fun, diversion, enjoyment, but 
it is. 

Coming to a rustic bridge at the foot of a 
beautiful fall, we defer to a particularly 
dark cloud, stop and take to the wagon for 
shelter. A clear, lovely stream here leaps 
down, by three successive falls, into three 
successive solid rock basins, landing in a 
pool of granite, washed clean of sand and 
gravel, lying, about forty feet in circumfer- 
ence between the bridge and the foot of the 
cascade. Over the last ledge it falls. 

Descending, disembodied and diffused, 
O'er the smooth surface of an ample crag. 
Lofty and steep and naked as a tower, 

Into its broad, clear pool, coming down the 
the gently inclined face of the smooth, moss- 
carpeted granite, in a beautiful thin sheet of 
bubbling water, fifteen feet in width, flanked 
at either side by foamy, broken, tumultuous 
streams of greater depth, roaring, cascade- 
iform, down broken ledges. The clear sheet 
of water, the smooth ledge, moss-carpeted 

under the water, the flanking falls ^\e or 

18 



274 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



six feet in widtli on either side, with their 
two cascades in their hist leap into the pool, 
formed falls of great beauty. 

When the rain ceased, we enjoyed a deli- 
cious bath, plunging into the clear, cold ba- 
sin, leaning reclined against and under the 
descending sheet of clear water, lying in the 
troughs of the cascades at the sides and com- 
ing out reinvigorated for further climbing. 

As we halted in the Great Smoky Gap, 
three miles from Kocky Point, and upon the 
divide between Tennessee and ^North Caro- 
lina, the sun w\as shining brightly. At this 
high point the valley views in Tennessee, to 
the Kentucky line, and tlie mountain views, 
down to the Georgia and South Carolina 
lines in North Carolina, are fine and far ex- 
tended. 

To our right towers the regal sunlit head 
of the Quoi- Ahna-toosa, named from " quoi- 
ahna," a duck, and '^ catoosa," a moun- 
tain, meaning the " duck-mountain," being- 
covered on its summit with lakes, where 
ducks pause in their migratory flight. 
Clingman, an old IN^orth Carolina politician, 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 275 

and one Buckley have had quite a quarrel 
about the Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa. Clingman, 
when one of the Regents of the Smithsonian 
Institution, had it named " Clingman's 
Dome;" while Buckley has had it named for 
him on some maps. Mapwise it appears 
both ways. It is a magnificent mountain, 
perhaps the highest peak east of the Missis- 
sippi. Too weighty for the shoulders of either 
Buckley or Clingman, it should be left alone 
to bear its own beautiful Indian name. 

At this point the Wagonauts barely escaped 
an insurrection. Blanc drew out his watch 
and called Panier's attention to the fiict that 
it was 10 o'clock. 

"And in an hour it will be 11; and 
thereby hangs a tale; and thus we ripe and 
ripe and rot and rot," replied the mixtly 
Shaksperian Panier. 

"A truce to frivolity," replied Blanc. "I 
propose that we drink to the health of Quoi- 
Ahna-Catoosa and destruction to all tyrants 
and an end to this six bells business." 
Blanc looked really heroic as he concluded 
his Phili])pic, and added: " Panier, we've been 



276 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 



cheated all the way from Knoxville to this 
point. We've been in the eastern division, 
and six bells comes at 10 o'clock by onr 
time. We've been deceived — lost a good 
hour's drinking every day, cheated of our 
fair proportion of drinking time by this dis- 
sembling despot, whom we've too, far too, 
long endured. 'No halfway measures with 
tyrants. Down with six bells." 

Panier is a very bold man; but he's very 
conservative; law, custom, what's "by ages 
of possession consecrate " he dares not 
overturn. I saw from the water in Panier's 
eye that a half decent excuse would save 
him. 

"Gentlemen," I said, "it's true that I've 
saved you from yourselves. Invoking es- 
tablished usage, it was not my fault if you 
lost an hour by failing to set your watches 
up as you came eastward. JN^ow, I've pre- 
pared a little surprise. I've kept hid at the 
bottom of the mess chest four bottles of real 
Pomery sec. and no mistake, to be tapped at 
our last mountain station, homeward bound. 
Here's the place; there's the wine; there's 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 277 



the spring; and damme if the man who 
doesn't renew his alliance to the six bells 
rnle, shall have a drop, w^ere he a dessiccated 
flea, roasting npon Bardolph's nose." 

Panier at once took the oath, and Blanc 
reluctantly followed. In five minutes the 
Pomery sec. was cooling in a cold mountain- 
top spring, a rousing fire was burning, the 
horses were turned loose to graze, and the 
Wagonauts w ere resting on the grass, which 
the rains below had not reached. 

Blanc softened as the bubbles and beads 
of growing coolness gathered upon the 
graceful taper necks of the champagne bot- 
tles and the lizards and frogs crawled lov- 
ingly over the glass, wishing they could get 
in; and he proposed that we should memori- 
alize the Congress of the United States to 
enact the six bells rule into a law. Exactly 
at six bells — old time — the canteen was 
brought out and was tapped by way of prim- 
ing. 

When the sun indicated high noon, Epicu- 
rus spread the tablecloth and laid thereon 
two broiled spring chickens, sundry slices of 



278 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



venison, bongbt a store, bacon, broiled on tbe 
coals, roasted roasting ears, roasted Irisb 
potatoes of tbe fine monntain kind, beaten 
biscuits, a pat of butter, a bottle of tbe finest 
olives, a buncb of tender lettuce, wliicb bas 
been crisping in tbe spring, a buncb of water 
cress, gathered in tbe valley below, a dozen 
stuffed bard-boiled eggs, olives stufi'ed with 
ancbovies, English pickled wabiuts, ham 
sandwiches, a pot of smoking cotfee, and four 
champagne glasses — I had provided the extra 
one foi* the absent Brutus — and our spread 
was ready. 

Out of respect for its long and faithful 
service, the canteen was again tapped, and 
the hungry Wagonauts fell to with a zest and 
devoured the edibles with a keen appetite. 
We had prepared this feast for the gods by 
judicious purchases along the road; but the 
champagne was my own provision and a 
surprise. 

We lay on the grass, Roman fashion, " like 
gods reclined, careless of mankind," making 
believe that it was Olympus, and we the im- 
mortals, regaling ourselves with ambrosia, 



THE WAGONAUTS ABHOAD. 279 



with nectar a-cooling. When '^ not the half 
of our heavy task was done," Ganymede was 
directed to broach a bottle of champagne 
from the cooler. As the sparkling nectar 
bnbbled and flashed in the taper glasses, " The 
Wagonants " was proposed and drnnk, and 
then the absent Brntns, and then the Qnoi- 
Ahna-Catoosa, to whose snn-crowned head 
we tipped onr glasses. Then Panier pro- 
posed Jove; and Blanc proposed Ganymede, 
Jove's cup-bearer, to which onr ebony cup- 
bearer responded with a grin, as Panier 
handed him the extra glass. 

Never was a meal more delicious or more 
enjoyed than that regal spread there upon 
the cool mountain top, where the senses were 
regaled with the fragrance of wild grape 
blossoms and of the moist ferns, wdiere the 
tinkling rill made music fit to accompany a 
feast of the gods, and the rambling breezes 
played ^olian strains there under the grate- 
ful shadows of spruce and birch. 

When all were full, and the last walnut 
was gone, and the last olive had disappeared, 
and the last drop of sparkling wine was 



280 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD, 



drained from the goblet, I said : '^ Gentlemen, 
I've another little surprise — a pony of eaii 
de vie, a j)ousse cafe for the wind-up." Blanc 
and Panier hugged me, and the rosy cognac 
was drunk in a health " to the best of cater- 
ers, A. T. Ramp," proposed by Blanc, who, 
with tears in's eyes, distraction in's visage, 
humbly apologized for his meditated revolt 
against the six bells rule. 

" One more surprise, gentlemen : here are 
the best of the Henry Clay Perfecto cigars 
from the Hermitage Club. Let's burn a 
sweet savor of incense to the spirit of the 
mountain top." The unimpressible Panier 
here hugged me, as he lit a fragrant Havana. 

At this point the irrepressible and insatia- 
ble Panier drew from his pocket a poem. Al- 
cibiades anxiously said he thought we'd 
"better be gittin' along; mought meet some 
Tnjuns in the dark; " but there was no escape. 
Panier read the following verses : 

The Disturbed Mountains. 
Like mighty monsters in a vasty lair, 

Aroused to make a fierce protest, 
By venturous steps of aliens who dare 

With heedless haste disturb their rest, 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 281 



The mountains frowned at the invading tread 

Of the Wagonauts, so fresh and free, 
Nor less resentful seemed to see them led 

By A. T. Ramp, with schnicker schnee. 

And when bold Blanc, athirst for Indian gore, 

With eyes aflame and locks of tire, 
Scalped one poor trembling brave, and cried for more. 

They shook their rugged sides with ire. 

But Panier, with a gentler art instead, 

By song the mountains did beguile. 
Until athwart their frowsy faces spread 

A sun-fetched amplitude of smile. 

And when the Brutus read Sliakspearean verse, 

In voice so tragical and deep, 
The wondering monsters were disarmed of fears. 

And soon were lulled again to sleep. 

When he had finished, he waked np Blanc, 
myself, and Alcibiades, and we toned np our 
failing systems with a " pony," lit a fresh ci- 
gar, and prepared for the road. 

"We have been told that the descent to the 
Harding farm is seven miles of good road. 
The road is good, but the descent seemed to 
us chiefly ascent. Blanc said that we de- 
scended by ascent in order to make a de(s)cent 



282 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



entry into the valley of the Tennessee. The 
good humor spread over the AVagonant party 
by the hxte dinner enabled this to pass with- 
out comment. 

At last we came to a tollgate. Tennessee 
seems to have a monopoly of tollgates upon 
pikes that exist in the imagination. As it is 
on the Kentuck}^ border, all turnpikes end at 
the State line. A traveller by stage from 
JN^ashville to Ilopkinsville, Ky., one night 
was suddenly jolted up, bump against the 
forward part of the coach, as if the world had 
come to an end. " What the h — ll's the mat- 
ter, driver? " he shouted. 

" I^othin' at all, sir," replied the driver; 
"jist struck Kaintucky." 

A surly young man refused to open the 
gate until we had paid toll. It was not wise 
to resist, but we told him that we could no 
more trust him to open the gate than he 
could trust us to pay toll. After some alter- 
cation, he opened the gate, and we paid the 
toll. Although the charter, if any ever ex- 
isted, had been long forfeited, and toll could 
not be legally collected, the road was good 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



and a public convenience, for which we were 
willing to pay. 

We have now passed through a region of 
:North Carolina unknown to any of our party. 
I have here seen the mountaineer substan- 
tially as I have known him in my youth, when 
I hunted, fished, danced on puncheon floors, 
phiyed the fiddle, and enjoyed summer jaunts 
w^ith him farther to the northeast. In the 
region that we have passed through he is un- 
chans'ed bv communications and travel. 
Closer connections have wrought great 
changes further east; but these have left this 
region beyond the pale of travel. The coun- 
try is far more secluded than in earlier days, 
when great lines of communication ran 
through this region. Travel has been divert- 
ed to rail lines. We did not meet or pass a 
single vehicle on the Cataloochee road, by 
Mount Sterling, on the Socoah road, or on 
the road we are now traveling; and yet these 
were in the past thoroughfares. Except a 
fevi late-come capitalists and prospectors, no 
strano-ers have entered here; and the natives, 
when they do go out, depart by other lines, 



284 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



which are now more convenient. The only 
actual settlement hereabout was that of a 
Scotch colony of lumber speculators, and 
they have failed and gone. 

I beg pardon for again referring to dialect. 
For the chief writer of mountain dialect sto- 
ries I have a profound respect — for her indus- 
try, for her real genius, for works entertain- 
ing and worthy in themselves apart from 
their errors, foi* her magnificent descriptive 
powers, although a bit overworked. She sel- 
dom uses words not sometimes spoken by 
the mountain people; but it would take the 
peculiarities of speech of a thousand to make 
one character, speaking as her characters do 
speak. I have never heard the word " hants," 
or "haunts," in the mountains; although I 
have heard "hants" among the ignorant 
people, chiefly the negroes of the lowlands. 

The language of these people is as easily 
understood as that of educated people, and is 
only singular and outre when written. Writ- 
ten as it is, it would look more unfamiliar 
than it ever sounds. Besides, she writes 
most uncolloquial speech; and this is her 



THE WAGOKAUTS ABROAD. 285 



chief fault. Her characters do not speak, 
even in their own jargon, as men and women 
talk. Antique words, although plentiful, do 
not form the woof and warp of the daily 
speech of these people. If it were collo- 
quial, her speech would not be their language. 
This is to violate the truth of fiction; and 
fiction has its own laws, which will not be 
violated with impunity. 

There is no dialect in this country, unless 
it be the speech of the French Creoles and 
of the South Carolina negroes, w^hich is really 
an unintelligible African jargon. Riley's 
verses in the speech of the ignorant, the 
mountain dialect stories, and most of that 
sort of literature, including the African jar- 
gon tales, is mere pestilential cacography. 
Of all things in literature this is the least 
worthy. Thackeray's ^^ Yellow Plush Pa- 
pers " are an instance of a great writer de- 
grading his talents to mere cacography. Both 
dialect and cacography touch, at their best, 
merely the outre, the occasional, the transient, 
and the accidental; where genius seeks the 
genuine, the true, the lasting, the granite bed- 



286 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 



rock lines in humanity, which alone can live 
and be true for all time — to-morrow as to- 
day, to-day as yesterda}^ That the lasting- 
may well be fringed and trimmed and deco- 
rated with the accidental is true. This the 
chief writer of mountain stories has done to 
some extent; but with too much of the outre 
and accidental, and too little of the permanent 
and lasting — too much trimming and too lit- 
tle fabric. 

This sort of literature has been attractive 
to JN^orthern readers because it sketches the 
outre and touches the phases of Southern 
life about which they are ignorant and of 
which they seek information; but it cannot 
form the basis of a lasting literature — not 
Southern — but depicting Southern life and 
society as it is and as it was. The coming 
literature — not of but from the South — de- 
scriptive of Southern phases of character, 
will deal with the broad and eternal lines of 
social life and chai'acter, using the outre and 
the accidental sparingly, as mere trimmings, 
local shadings and tinting, laid in upon the 
broad, the universal, and the permanent. 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 287 



We are only halfway down the Tennessee 
side of the Great Smoky when night begins 
to fall. If we had feed, we could camp any- 
where; but Jim must be fed to make Mary- 
ville to-morrow. Panier and I walk; Blanc 
says he scotched, bnt we remember him as 
cumbering the wagon. By the time night 
closed in as black as Erebus, with scarce a 
star, we were in despair. The road led along 
deep abysses, and over dangerous hills, and 
down steep inclines. The sure hand of Lo- 
renzo de Medici is oui* sole reliance for seeing 
to-morrow's sun. Lighting a farthing dip, 
left from our haunted house sojourn, I walked 
in the center of the road and Lorenzo follow^ed, 
as well as he could, my guidance. Fortunate- 
ly, the road was good. My self-sacrifice was 
loudly applauded; but T really devoted Pa- 
nier and Blanc to the yawning gulfs on either 
hand. 

About 9 o'clock we reached the Hard= 
ing farm, and in the dark passed the road 
which led to the house of Mr. Howard, the 
present owner. As we drove on down the 
valley, what I took to be a low-flying meteor 



288 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 

whizzed along the ground, on the riverside; 
and then another and another. '^What are 
they doing with rockets here? " asked Blanc. 

" Our coming has been announced; I hope 
I shall not have to speak to-night in answer 
to a welcoming address, " said Panier. 

We halted and hailed a light which shone 
through the vast river bottom cornfield. We 
might as well have bayed the moon, for the 
light was five miles away, so deceptive is 
eyesight in the night. Our road leads to a 
gate, which enters a cornfield. We must 
have missed our way. 1 blame my eyesight, 
and I seldom blame myself for any mishap. 
At least the road mav lead to a house. After 
much winding the road comes to an end, and 
I get out and light a candle. Searching for 
the road, I fall into a deep ditch and return 
to find Blanc and Panier discussing the situ- 
ation over the canteen. At last I find the 
road, and we make another mile of intermi- 
nable cornfield by what turned out next day 
to be a neii^hborhood road. ISTow we're out 
in the corn again, trampling people's bread- 
stuffs and mirinc: in the soft tilth, until 



THE WAGOi^^AUTS ABROAD. 289 



wagon, Wagonauts, horses, and Jehu land 
in a ditch. We prize out, and halt be- 
wildered. 

"We'll sleep here in the wagon," said 
Blanc. To this Panier agrees and Cerbe- 
rus applauds. My authority as flag-officer 
is waning, but I said: "Gentlemen, we will 
not sleep here." This brings revolt to a 
head, and I proceed to unfold. " Gentlemen, 
W^agonauts, our reputation will stand any 
strain; but if the Knoxville editors hear, as 
they will, of our being found here at daylight, 
asleep in a gentleman's cornfield, with a wag- 
on, a driver, and two kegs (chiefly filled with 
emptiness) and a dry canteen, they will in- 
dite such an article as will ruin our reputa- 
tions; and no man, and what's more no wom- 
an, will ever believe that we weren't howling 
drunk, when we got into that scrape, 

Druiiker'n hootin' biled owls, 
Or any other wild fowls. 

" There's much truth in that," said Panier. 
"I hadn't thought of that," said Blanc. 
" Dat's so," remarked the sententious Bac- 
chus Africanus. 
19 



290 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



"If Blanc's red nose is found where it is 
usually anchored, near the bunghole, who 
can receive it other?" I said. 

"Who can receive it other?" echoed 
Panier. 

"Who can receive it other?" echoed 
Blanc. 

"Who'll take 'nother? " said Bacchus. 

We got out, lifted the wagon around, and 
drove back toward a house where we saw a 
light. After two miles of travel it was no 
nearer than when we started. It was really 
five miles away across the river; but we did 
finally come to a light off the road; and, 
leaving the team, Panier and I went to ask 
for lodgings. A handsome, robust, neatly 
dressed w^oman came to the door, surrounded 
by a bevy of lovely daughters. Her husband 
wasn't at home, and they didn't take in 
strangers. We told her who we were and 
what was our unfortunate plight, out in the 
night, far from any house, with worn-out team 
and a broken axle — an invention of Panier's. 
Still: "I'm very sorry." A thought struck 
mc. "Madam, have you any water?" As 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 291 



she turned, I said : " Panier, we must show 
ourselves and trust to her being able to see 
through our rough attire that we're gentlemen 
in disguise." We entered the house and the 
lady was able to know gentlemen disguised. 
"I'd be sorry to turn gentlemen away at this 
time of night," she said. 

" Shall I have our team driven up to the 
front, madam," I said, taking it for granted. 

" Yes, right there by the gate; the stable 
is out there; my little boy will show you the 
way." 

In an hour we had surrounded a square 
meal from our own stores, and were smoking 
our pipes and laughing at wanton fate cheat- 
ed, and congratulating our own good luck. 

The lady told us that the rockets we had 
seen were preconcerted signals, arranged 
between a party of tourists on the mountain 
top and a house across the river. 

And now, last scene of all in this eventful 
history: after a delicious breakfast with our 
fair hostess, who dwells at Mary ville in the 
winter for the education of her children, and 
lives here in the summer and raises flow- 



292 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 



ers and has everything neat and comfortable 
about her, we are off for the capital of Blount 
County. It wouldn't have been so bad after 
all if we had slept in the cornfield; for we 
were told that the main road here was the 
neighborhood road which led through the 
cornfield. AVe can take a nearer road across 
Chilhowie range; but we've had enough of 
Jim in conjunction with mountain roads. 
We enter the cornfield and pass through 
many a gate and along the foot of Chilhowie, 
about tw^enty miles, to where we pass around 
the end of the mountain, and across the di- 
vide to Maryville. Across the river, as we 
go, we can see the site of the old Indian 
settlement, and later paleface fort of Telas- 
see, where was once a large ^'illage. The 
views on the Little Tennessee along here 
should attract artists from all quarters. I 
have seen nothing finer or more attractive to 
the landscape artist than this long, winding 
trough of the Tennessee and its broad fertile 
bottoms and vast fields of waving corn, over- 
shadowed by high hills, steep mountains, 
huge clifis, and wooded summitSo 



THE WACIOiSTAUTS ABKOAD. 29»: 



o 



Out of the mountains, over the foothills of 
the long sandstone Chilhovvie mountain 
range; and, leaving it in our rear, we stop 
for lunch and to feed. A grey-eyed mountain 
damsel — robust, barefooted, good-looking, 
with an evident policy of her own — comes 
down to the cool spring and sweet spring 
house, well stored with milk and butter, to 
be sold to neighboring watering places; and 
gives us, for a very modest compensation, 
fresh, cool buttermilk, delicious sweet milk, 
and fragrant butter off the clover fields, and 
made by her own fair hands. She talks pleas- 
antly the while, and with good sense and 
good English, although she's barefooted. 
Her father tells us that he's never been ten 
miles away, although he is a very intelligent 
man and talks well. He also plays the fiddle, 
and we have " Rackback Davy," " Old Zip 
Coon," " N^atchez under the Hill," and " Billy 
in the Lowgrounds." This old-fashioned 
music moves Panier's not too robust legs to 
the mazes of the dance. 

Nae cotillons brent new frae France, 
But hornpipes, jigs, strathpeys, an' reels 
Pit life an' mettle in his heels. 



294 THE WAGOI^AUTS ABROAD. 



He tries " Old Granny" and ^^ Forked Deer; " 
but " Rickett's Hornpipe " brings out all the 
grace and mettle in Panier. I stood in 
amazement, wondering at this Terpsichorean 
feat, and Blanc lectured him on the undigni- 
ty of the display there in the " big road." 
Panier said that the Scriptures recorded that 
the rams danced and skipped, and lambs 
hopped, and the hills danced their legs off 
when the old '^chunes " of Zion were played, 
and he meant to knock it out once more if it 
blistered his heel. 

Blanc had another narrow escape from 
death here, trying to make what he called a 
mint julep. He offered the concoction to me, 
but I suspected treason and poison, and de- 
clined. He had violated all julep rules, mash- 
ing the leaves up in a cup, when it's the odor 
and flavor of the mint, and not the taste, that 
is wanted and prescribed. I recognized the 
" yerb " at once as a deadly poison. 

" Why, it smells like mint," said he. 

^^O, yes," said I; ^^you have found a leaf 
by accident, but most of the plants you've 
got there are poisonous Aveeds." I lectured 



THE wago:n^auts abroad. 295 



him in good botany, threw out the poison- 
ous " smash," and found him a bunch of real 
mint. 

Our road now lies over long, steep hills, 
until we reach a beautiful, fertile, but ill- 
watered country, ten miles from Mary vi lie, 
with the blue ridge of Chilhowie behind us, 
stretching, a long sandstone ridge, from near 
Sevierville southwesterly to the Little Ten- 
nessee; and farther, southeastward, tower the 
far, tall blue peaks of the Great Smoky, in 
Sevier and Cocke Counties, Tenn. 

We are making about a half mile an hour, 
and are six miles from Maryville, when Jim 
comes to a dead halt. An old farmer was in- 
duced by Panier's persuasive tongue to sell 
us a feed of corn and oats. Stopping in a 
long lane, we fed, built a fire by the roadside, 
and soon had a supper fit for a king, with a 
pot of fine black coffee, displaying the exqui- 
site touch of Panier in its delicate aroma. 
I've seldom enjoyed a meal more than that 
roadside supper. A smoke in the fence cor- 
ner, and an hour's sleep upon a divan formed 
of the wagon cushions, and we are off* for 



296 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



Maryville, which we reach about 12 o'clock, 
finding everybody in bed. 

Here I Avish to lodge the only complaint I 
have had to make of Blanc and Panier as 
traveling companions. I enlivened the dark 
road with song — operatic gems, ballads, and 
sentimental verse. My companions have no 
ear for music. They know not the soothing 
influences of melody. They've no under- 
standing of the concords of sweet sounds. 
Their deafness did'nt disturb me in the least. 
I sang on. I liked it. 

The hotel was full; but we secured the 
soft side of a floor, and, with our blankets, 
enjoyed a good night's rest, and got up early 
to view the ancient and picturesque capital 
of Blount. Maryville is the old seat of a 
'New School Presbj^terian Theological Semi- 
nary, whence emanated once, from one of its 
professors, the most remarkable epic poem 
that was ever composed — a poem now forgot, 
but deserving revival and such study as Ho- 
mer has received. I read it in my early days, 
when my father was a minister of the Old 
School Church, and procured and enjoyed it 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 297 

as about the kind of doggerel a :^ew School 
man would write. Tt is one of the curiosi- 
ties of literature which deserves embalming. 
There is a tradition that Payne composed his 
"Home, Sweet Plome" while he was Indian 
Agent out in this country. That he was 
such agent is true, but the rest of the tradi- 
tion is unfounded. 

Distrustful of Jim, we bade Saltus Afri- 
canus an affectionate good-bye, and left him 
to wrestle with James and find his way to 
Knoxville, while we boarded the train. But 
we were not quite quits with Jim and Jehu. 
As the train passed by a steep hill ^^e saw 
Jim stalled fast upon the hillside, and Scipio 
lashing his side and filling the air with blue 
blazes of profane speech. 

With a very bad horse we have made two 
hundred and fifty miles of rough mountain 
road — from Knoxville to Sevierville, and 
thence around through Qualla, and by the 
valley of the Little Tennessee, to Maryville 
and back to Knoxville — a wide circuit. 

I humbly apologize to the stricter sort for 
mention of the keg, which has been really 



298 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 



more frequent than its use. Why the con- 
vivial has a place in all literature — song, bal- 
lad, epic, and romance — I know not; but it 
has, and I'm not one to fly in the face of es- 
tablished usage. The keg and the canteen 
were along for use; but their chiefest use 
has been to point a moral and adorn a tale, 
with Blanc and Panier as horrible examples. 

The good things that have happened I 
hoj)e I have impartially distributed to Blanc 
and Panier, only giving myself the worst 
parts played. I believe that I have not ad- 
mitted that thei'e is anything I don't know. 
If I have, I apologize for that. 

Having neither hotel nor rail nor river 
tourists' lines to advertise, I can conscien- 
tiously commend the Bald and Roan mount- 
ain regions, the wild, picturesque Qualla 
country, the rugged peaks of the Quoi-Ahna- 
Catoosa, and the lovely valleys of the !Nante- 
hala, the Cataloochee, and the Ocona-Luftee 
to all tourists of America. To these may be 
added the equally wild and rugged Asheville 
country and its beautiful centre city of grow- 
ing refinement, elegance, and culture, now 



THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 299 



accessible by rail. In all these regions there 
is the wildest, noblest, and most picturesque 
mountain scenery to be found in America 
this side the Rocky Mountains. I cannot 
conscientiously advise two kegs; but if I 
were the tourist, I would not go unprovided 
with something for the stomach's sake. It's 
dangerous. 

As we entered Knoxville, Achilles drove 
up to the depot and saluted, borne upon the 
wings of the wind. In fact, our train had 
been delayed four hours on the way. An- 
other agonizing parting, and we board the 
train for ISTashville; and the Wagonautic tour 
of Ramp, Blanc, Panier, and the canteen and 
two kegs draws to a close, and adjourns sine 
die. 




EKEATUM. 



The picture of the "moonshiner," Jim, referred to 

on page 63, was lost too late to supply, and a portrait 

of another moonshiner, noted in federal courts, is 

substituted. 
(300) 










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